Escocia camino a la independencia.

El dìa de hoy el pueblo escocès expresò su deseo de independencia.

Españoles y britànicos hablan sobre el Brexit.

Las Analectas de Confucio

Descripción

''Las Analectas'' es la famosa compilación de los dichos y las acciones de Confucio y, como el texto más preciado del confucianismo, ha tenido una gran influencia en la cultura de China y de las naciones vecinas. Se dice que se introdujo a Japón alrededor del siglo V. La primera obra se llama la «versión Tenmon», la segunda, versión de Rongo, que se publicó en Japón, después de Rongo shikkai (conocida como la versión de Shōhei), que se publicó por primera vez en Japón en el decimonoveno año de la era Shōhei (1364). Las Analectas de Tenmon fueron publicadas en el segundo año de la era Tenmon (1533) por dos miembros de la familia Asaino, un médico y un editor de Sakai, que se basaron en el apreciado libro escrito por Kiyohara Nobukata (1475-1550), la autoridad sobre estudios confucianos de la época. La obra de la colección de la Biblioteca Nacional de la Dieta está impresa con nitidez; tiene una hoja posterior con notas manuscritas, del mismo Nobukata, sobre su procedencia. Están fechadas en noviembre del año decimosexto de la era Tenmon (1547). Todo esto parece indicar que se trata de una rara primera edición. Durante el período Edo se agregó al libro una lujosa cubierta de brocado de Nishijin.

Confucio fue un maestro chino, estadista y filósofo que vivió en los siglos V y VI A.C. Uno de los filósofos más influyentes de todos los tiempos, y aún profundamente considerado entre el pueblo chino. Su ideología enfatiza la importancia de la familia, así como la justicia, la sinceridad y la moralidad tanto en asuntos personales como políticos. Confucio no se consideraba a sí mismo como un innovador, sino como un conservador de la verdad antigua y la propiedad ceremonial. No se ocupó de la teología o la metafísica, sino del comportamiento moral y político. Las "Analectas" o "Dichos de Confucio" es la colección clásica de sus enseñanzas compiladas por sus discípulos durante varios siglos después de su muerte. Confucio creía que el bienestar de una nación dependía del carácter moral de su gente, y que el cultivo de su caaraacter comienza por una dedicación al bienestar de los demás, comenzando con la familia inmediata de uno. El impacto de este trabajo en la filosofía oriental no puede ser exagerado, ya que sigue siendo hoy en día una de las obras filosóficas más importantes de la antigüedad.

Auld Lang Syne

Douguie McLean

Sang by
Dougie MacLean

''When I listen to this song, I picture myself myself middle-aged, around a table with old childhood friends. We're sharing a bottle of some fine whiskey. Some of us are married, have kids, and jobs... all of us victims of the uncertainties of time. Before we stand and head back to the chaos of our respective lives, we laugh and joke about our lives in younger days and give one final cheers in hopes of being able to see each other soon. That's the feeling I get from this song...''.

Yolo Swaggins

Should auld acquaintance be forgot And never brought tae mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot And days of auld lang syne? For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet For auld lang syne We twa hae run aboot the braes And pu’d the gowans fine But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit Sin days of auld lang syne For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet For auld lang syne And we twa hae paidl’d i' the burn Frae morning sun till dine But seas between us braid hae roar’d Sin days of auld lang syne For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet For auld lang syne This verse - Not in this version (And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp! And surely I’ll be mine! And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet For auld lang syne) And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere! And gie's a hand o’ thine! And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught For auld lang syne For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet For auld lang syne For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet For auld lang syne

Auld Lang Syne is a Scottish poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and later set to the tune of a traditional folk song. The song's title may be translated into Standard English as "old long since” or more idiomatically, "long long ago", "days gone by" or "old time’s sake". The song begins by posing a rhetorical question as to whether it is right that old times be forgotten, and is generally interpreted as a call to remember long-standing friendships.

Bronco.

Grupo de izquierda no contará con congresistas en el Parlamento.

Julio Arbizu

Jehude Simon tirò la toalla

No fue suficiente. De acuerdo a los resultados de la ONPE, Juntos Por el Perú no alcanzó la valla electoral y no contará con congresistas en el nuevo Parlamento. La agrupación política de izquierda se quedó sin chances de participar del Congreso de la República.

El más reciente informe de la ONPE sobre la Elecciones Congresales Extraordinarias 2020 dio a conocer que el partido liderado por Roberto Sánchez y Julio Arbizu solo llegó al 4.76% de los votos y no superó la valla de 5%. Según la aproximación del conteo rápido al 100%, de haber pasado la valla, Juntos Por El Perú habría podido tener cinco congresistas en el Parlamento. José Incio, politólogo de la Universidad de Pittsburgh, dijo que la repartición de escaños de JP se distribuiría entre las organizaciones políticas que obtuvieron más votos. “Él [el partido que obtuvo más votos] tendrá más chance de llevarse la curul [de JP]. Quien sacó más votos como partido”, explicó. Por ejemplo, indicó que en el caso de la región Lambayeque, donde JP perdería una curul si no logra pasar la valla, “quien se ve beneficia es Podemos Perú, que sí pasa la valla. Como sí la pasó y JP no, ahora sí podría entrar”. Al salir JP de la distribución de escaños, la cifra repartidora podría bajar.

Por su parte, sl candidato al Congreso de la República con el número 5 de Juntos Por el Perú, Julio Arbizu, fue consultado sobre la virtual derrota de su partido, que según el conteo de actas procesadas de la ONPE al 99,44%, no pasó la valla electoral y por ende no obtuvo ninguna curul. Al respecto, el abogado insistió en que hay una cantidad importante de actas que se encuentran actualmente en el Jurado Electoral Especial (JEE) que faltan contabilizarse.

Al 99.6% de actas procesadas por la Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (ONPE), se confirma que el PPC alcanza el 4.0% de votos válidos, mientras que el APRA, el 2.72%. Esto significa que dichos partidos tradicionales no tendràn bancada en el Congreso de la Repùblica. De confirmarse los votos de Juntos por el Perù, es decir de no pasar el 5% , estos tendrìan la misma suerte que el APRA y el PPC, no tendrìan bancada parlamentaria. Jehude Simon por su parte aceptò la derrota.

Fuente: La razòn

1984

George Orwell 

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and essayist, journalist and critic.

Born: June 25, 1903, Motihari, Bengal Presidency, British India

Died: January 21, 1950, London, England, UK

Part One

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran. Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended. Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The blackmoustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at streetlevel another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered. Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste -- this was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken-houses? But it was no use, he could not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible. The Ministry of Truth -- Minitrue, in Newspeak -- was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. Scattered about London there were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So completely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from the roof of Victory Mansions you could see all four of them simultaneously. They were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty. The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometre of it. It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons. Winston turned round abruptly. He had set his features into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the telescreen. He crossed the room into the tiny kitchen. By leaving the Ministry at this time of day he had sacrificed his lunch in the canteen, and he was aware that there was no food in the kitchen except a hunk of dark-coloured bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow's breakfast. He took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese ricespirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine. Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to look more cheerful. He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out on to the floor. With the next he was more successful. He went back to the living-room and sat down at a small table that stood to the left of the telescreen. From the table drawer he took out a penholder, a bottle of ink, and a thick, quarto-sized blank book with a red back and a marbled cover. For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual position. Instead of being placed,as was normal, in the end wall, where it could command the whole room, it was in the longer wall, opposite the window. To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been intended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen. It was partly the unusual geography of the room that had suggested to him the thing that he was now about to do. But it had also been suggested by the book that he had just taken out of the drawer. It was a peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for at least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book was much older than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it. Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops ('dealing on the free market', it was called), but the rule was not strictly kept, because there were various things, such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible to get hold of in any other way. He had given a quick glance up and down the street and then had slipped inside and bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious of wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession. The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the speakwrite which was of course impossible for his present purpose. He dipped the pen into the ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:

April 4th, 1984.

He sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him. To begin with, he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984. It must be round about that date, since he was fairly sure that his age was thirty-nine, and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two. For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn. His mind hovered for a moment round the doubtful date on the page, and then fetched up with a bump against the Newspeak word doublethink. For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless. For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper. The telescreen had changed over to strident military music. It was curious that he seemed not merely to have lost the power of expressing himself, but even to have forgotten what it was that he had originally intended to say. For weeks past he had been making ready for this moment, and it had never crossed his mind that anything would be needed except courage. The actual writing would be easy. All he had to do was to transfer to paper the interminable restless monologue that had been running inside his head, literally for years. At this moment, however, even the monologue had dried up. Moreover his varicose ulcer had begun itching unbearably. He dared not scratch it, because if he did so it always became inflamed. The seconds were ticking by. He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page Ain front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the gin. Suddenly he began writing in sheer panic, only imperfectly aware of what he was setting down. His small but childish handwriting straggled up and down the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its full stops: April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself, all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. then there was a wonderful shot of a child's arm going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats but a woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting they didnt oughter of showed it not in front of kids they didnt it aint right not in front of kids it aint until the police turned her turned her out i dont suppose anything happened to her nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they never --

Winston stopped writing, partly because he was suffering from cramp. He did not know what had made him pour out this stream of rubbish. But the curious thing was that while he was doing so a totally different memory had clarified itself in his mind, to the point where he almost felt equal to writing it down. It was, he now realized, because of this other incident that he had suddenly decided to come home and begin the diary today. It had happened that morning at the Ministry, if anything so nebulous could be said to happen. It was nearly eleven hundred, and in the Records Department, where Winston worked, they were dragging the chairs out of the cubicles and grouping them in the centre of the hall opposite the big telescreen, in preparation for the Two Minutes Hate. Winston was just taking his place in one of the middle rows when two people whom he knew by sight, but had never spoken to, came unexpectedly into the room. One of them was a girl whom he often passed in the corridors. He did not know her name, but he knew that she worked in the Fiction Department. Presumably -- since he had sometimes seen her with oily hands and carrying a spanner she had some mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines. She was a bold-looking girl, of about twenty-seven, with thick hair, a freckled face, and swift, athletic movements. A narrow scarlet sash, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League, was wound several times round the waist of her overalls, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips. Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the atmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths and community hikes and general clean-mindedness which she managed to carry about with her. He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy. But this particular girl gave him the impression of being more dangerous than most. Once when they passed in the corridor she gave him a quick sidelong glance which seemed to pierce right into him and for a moment had filled him with black terror. The idea had even crossed his mind that she might be an agent of the Thought Police. That, it was true, was very unlikely. Still, he continued to feel a peculiar uneasiness, which had fear mixed up in it as well as hostility, whenever she was anywhere near him. The other person was a man named O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party and holder of some post so important and remote that Winston had only a dim idea of its nature. A momentary hush passed over the group of people round the chairs as they saw the black overalls of an Inner Party member approaching. O'Brien was a large, burly man with a thick neck and a coarse, humorous, brutal face. In spite of his formidable appearance he had a certain charm of manner. He had a trick of resettling his spectacles on his nose which was curiously disarming -- in some indefinable way, curiously civilized. It was a gesture which, if anyone had still thought in such terms, might have recalled an eighteenth-century nobleman offering his snuffbox. Winston had seen O'Brien perhaps a dozen times in almost as many years. He felt deeply drawn to him, and not solely because he was intrigued by the contrast between O'Brien's urbane manner and his prize-fighter's physique. Much more it was because of a secretly held belief -- or perhaps not even a belief, merely a hope -- that O'Brien's political orthodoxy was not perfect. Something in his face suggested it irresistibly. And again, perhaps it was not even unorthodoxy that was written in his face, but simply intelligence. But at any rate he had the appearance of being a person that you could talk to if somehow you could cheat the telescreen and get him alone. Winston had never made the smallest effort to verify this guess: indeed, there was no way of doing so. At this moment O'Brien glanced at his wrist-watch, saw that it was nearly eleven hundred, and evidently decided to stay in the Records Department until the Two Minutes Hate was over. He took a chair in the same row as Winston, a couple of places away. A small, sandy-haired woman who worked in the next cubicle to Winston was between them. The girl with dark hair was sitting immediately behind.

The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one's teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one's neck. The Hate had started. As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even -- so it was occasionally rumoured -- in some hiding-place in Oceania itself. Winston's diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard -- a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party -- an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed -- and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life. And all the while, lest one should be in any doubt as to the reality which Goldstein's specious claptrap covered, behind his head on the telescreen there marched the endless columns of the Eurasian army -- row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar. The dull rhythmic tramp of the soldiers' boots formed the background to Goldstein's bleating voice. Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State. The Brotherhood, its name was supposed to be. There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as the book. But one knew of such things only through vague rumours. Neither the Brotherhood nor the book was a subject that any ordinary Party member would mention if there was a way of avoiding it. In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O'Brien's heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out 'Swine! Swine! Swine!' and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston's hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock against the hordes of Asia, and Goldstein, in spite of his isolation, his helplessness, and the doubt that hung about his very existence, seemed like some sinister enchanter, capable by the mere power of his voice of wrecking the structure of civilization. It was even possible, at moments, to switch one's hatred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one's head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid, beautiful hallucinations flashed through his mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut her throat at the moment of climax. Better than before, moreover, he realized why it was that he hated her. He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless, because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so, because round her sweet supple waist, which seemed to ask you to encircle it with your arm, there was only the odious scarlet sash, aggressive symbol of chastity. The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep's bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio'd, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

But the face of Big Brother seemed to persist for several seconds on the screen, as though the impact that it had made on everyone's eyeballs was too vivid to wear off immediately. The little sandyhaired woman had flung herself forward over the back of the chair in front of her. With a tremulous murmur that sounded like 'My Saviour!' she extended her arms towards the screen. Then she buried her face in her hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a prayer.cAt this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmical chant of 'B-B! ...B-B!' -- over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'B' and the second-a heavy, murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise. Winston's entrails seemed to grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he could not help sharing in the general delirium, but this sub-human chanting of 'B-B! ...B-B!' always filled him with horror. Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise. To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was doing, was an instinctive reaction. But there was a space of a couple of seconds during which the expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him. And it was exactly at this moment that the significant thing happened -- if, indeed, it did happen.

Momentarily he caught O'Brien's eye. O'Brien had stood up. He had taken off his spectacles and was in the act of resettling them on his nose with his characteristic gesture. But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew-yes, he knew!-that O'Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable message had passed. It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were flowing from one into the other through their eyes. 'I am with you,' O'Brien seemed to be saying to him. 'I know precisely what you are feeling. I know all about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust. But don't worry, I am on your side!' And then the flash of intelligence was gone, and O'Brien's face was as inscrutable as everybody else's. That was all, and he was already uncertain whether it had happened. Such incidents never had any sequel. All that they did was to keep alive in him the belief, or hope, that others besides himself were the enemies of the Party. Perhaps the rumours of vast underground conspiracies were true after all -- perhaps the Brotherhood really existed! It was impossible, in spite of the endless arrests and confessions and executions, to be sure that the Brotherhood was not simply a myth. Some days he believed in it, some days not. There was no evidence, only fleeting glimpses that might mean anything or nothing: snatches of overheard conversation, faint scribbles on lavatory walls -- once, even, when two strangers met, a small movement of the hand which had looked as though it might be a signal of recognition. It was all guesswork: very likely he had imagined everything. He had gone back to his cubicle without looking at O'Brien again. The idea of following up their momentary contact hardly crossed his mind. It would have been inconceivably dangerous even if he had known how to set about doing it. For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal glance, and that was the end of the story. But even that was a memorable event, in the locked loneliness in which one had to live. Winston roused himself and sat up straighter. He let out a belch. The gin was rising from his stomach. His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it was no longer the same cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals -

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER over and over again, filling half a page.

He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was absurd, since the writing of those particular words was not more dangerous than the initial act of opening the diary, but for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled pages and abandon the enterprise altogether.

He did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference. Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed -- would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper -- the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you. It was always at night -- the arrests invariably happened at night. The sudden jerk out of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights glaring in your eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word. For a moment he was seized by a kind of hysteria. He began writing in a hurried untidy scrawl: theyll shoot me i don't care theyll shoot me in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother they always shoot you in the back of the neck i dont care down with big brother --

He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and laid down the pen. The next moment he started violently. There was a knocking at the door. Already! He sat as still as a mouse, in the futile hope that whoever it was might go away after a single attempt. But no, the knocking was repeated. The worst thing of all would be to delay. His heart was thumping like a drum, but his face, from long habit, was probably expressionless. He got up and moved heavily towards the door.

A Man's a Man for A' That

Poem written by Robert Buns in 1795

Is there for honest Poverty

That hings his head, an' a' that;

The coward slave-we pass him by, 

We dare be poor for a' that!

For a' that, an' a' that. 

Our toils obscure an' a' that, 

The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

The Man's the gowd for a' that. 

What though on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hoddin grey, an' a that; 

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;

A Man's a Man for a' that:

For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, an' a' that;

The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, 

Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, 

Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that; 

Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 

He's but a coof for a' that:

For a' that, an' a' that,

His ribband, star, an' a' that:

The man o' independent mind 

He looks an' laughs at a' that. 

A prince can mak a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, an' a' that;

But an honest man's abon his might,

Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!

For a' that, an' a' that, 

Their dignities an' a' that; 

The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, 

Are higher rank than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it may,

(As come it will for a' that,) 

That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth, 

Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that, 

It's coming yet for a' that, 

That Man to Man, the world o'er, 

Shall brothers be for a' that. 

Candide

Voltaire (1694-1778), François-Marie Arouet, known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher 

A picaresque novel written by French satirical polemicist and philosopher Voltaire, Candide blatantly attacks the ideology of philosopher Leibniz. Candide follows the series of unfortunate events encountered by the young, yet blindly optimistic Candide. Shifting from one adventure to the next, Voltaire’s signature piece does not cease to grip its audience with its humorous criticism of power, wealth, love, religion, philosophy and especially optimism.

The novel begins with the introduction of the protagonist Candide, who lives in the castle of an influential German Baron, along with the Baron’s daughter Cunégonde, and tutor Dr. Pangloss. Depicted as an open-minded young man, Candide is influenced by the ideas of Dr. Pangloss who shares with him his philosophy that “all is for the best” and plants within him the seeds of optimism. However, events in the life of this young protagonist and his surroundings are everything but ideal. Such is his predetermined lower social class which alone labels him an unfitting suitor for the beautiful Cunégonde. Despite the mutual affection, it is this love that triggers his subsequent misfortune, after the Baron discovers the pair kissing and Candide is immediately thrown out of the castle and left to fend for himself in the not so idyllic world.

Determined to abide by the law of optimism and reason, he maintains his positive outlook on life, and that everything is for the best. So begins his exhilarating journey as he confronts and dodges endless unpleasant situations. Nevertheless, he is not alone on his seemingly discouraging path and repeatedly finds himself in the company of those who have been dealt a bad hand in life and who have been left to the mercy of life’s cruelty. The naïve and simplistic nature of the protagonist ignites sympathy within the reader as they intriguingly follow him throughout each obstacle while the theory of optimism is continuously challenged.

Voltaire chooses to not only criticize, but also report on the current issues of his time, which he successfully addresses through satire. He includes both historical events as well as moral issues which are as much of a concern as they were in Voltaire’s time. Candide is a novel which not only serves to entertain with its witty humor, but leaves readers to chew on their thoughts long after the novel’s ending.

Fuente:http://www.loyalbooks.com/book/candide-by-voltaire.

29 Años de ''Viernes Literarios''.

Juan Benavente

Por Jorge Aliaga Cacho.

Hace 29 años, desde el seno de la Asociaciòn Nacional de Escritores y Artistas, un 18 de enero de 1991, nació como proyecto lo que hoy se ha convertido en el referente literario màs importante de la capital peruana, los ''Viernes Literarios'', el mismo que a lo largo de los años ha enrumbado su cauce por diferentes calles y edificios limeños. Los ''VL'' hoy, indiscutiblemente, se ha convertido en un rìo, en una realidad indisoluble, gracias al sacrificio de un hombre del pueblo para su pueblo. El artìfice de esta hazaña es un poeta, narrador y promotor cultural, que ha sostenido esta actividad de manera contìnua y tenaz para la alegrìa de sus seguidores, amantes de la Literatura, y para la envidia y crítica malévola de los sempiternos 'hacelonada'. El hombre que ha hecho posible esta hazaña es Juan Benavente que el viernes 31 de enero celebra, el XXIX Aniversario de su creaciòn, en la Biblioteca de Lima Metropolitana.

Siempre he advocado por esfuerzos conjuntos para la labor cultural, y particularmente en una ciudad grande que, como Lima, alberga a màs de 9 millones de habitantes. Pocas son las organizaciònes que han apostado por ese obejtivo, por la actividad conjunta, integradora: La Sociedad de Poetas y Narradores de la Regiòn Lima es la excepciòn, la misma, que tiene poder de convocatoria a nivel nacional e internacional, y la que ha reconocido recientemente, en la ciudad de Huacho, la importante labor que Juan Benavente viene realizando en el paìs en beneficio de la Literatura, las artes y la cultura. El secreto de Benavente es haber sido siempre inclusivo; ello caracteriza su programaciòn literaria. En los ''Viernes Literarios'' se presentan buenos referentes de nuestras letras al lado de regulares o de los que a veces te hacen conciliar el sueño. Lo que importa en los ''VL'' es que todos los participantes se consideran hermanos en el aprendizaje, de ida y vuelta, en la experiencia literaria que reza: ''Sòlo la cultura salvarà al hombre''.

Escritores de la talla de Luis Yàñez, Raùl Gàlvez Cuèllar, Juan Rivera Saavedra, Mario Florìan, Gènaro Ledesma Izquieta, Marco Martos, Zoila Capristan, Tania Temoche, Cecilia Vàsquez, Ana Marìa Intilli, Winston Orrillo, Maynor Freire, Mary Oscàtegui, Pilar Roca, Oswaldo Reynoso, Sòcrates Zuzunaga, Leoncio Bueno, Diego Vicuña Villar, Eduardo Arroyo, Santiago Risso, Nicolàs Leòn Cadenillas, Enrique Gonzalez, los cineastas, ''Fico'' Garcìa y Roberto Aldave Palacios, Julio Solòrzano Murga, Josè Pablo Quevedo, el ademàs de escritor tambièn pintor, Teòfilo Villacorta Cahuide, Luis Albitres Mendo, Jorge Luis Roncal, Gustavo Armijos, el de ''La tortuga ecuestre''; Hèctor Cacho, Enrique Veràstegui. Los siempre vivaces, los siempre buenos, los decimistas encabezados por Antonio Silva Garcìa. Son cientos de nombres que podrìamos agregar a la lista, como el de Shirley Vallenas, esteta limeña, quien ha creado un marco musical para sumar a la calidad obtenida por el hebdomadario: ''Viernes Literarios''.

''Unidos se consigue todo, divididos nada''. He expresado en su momento que es necesario empezar una gran cruzada cultural con fines de pedir al municipio limeño una casona deshabitada, para la concreciòn de futuros ''Viernes Literarios'' , casona que sirva para la presentaciòn y difusiòn de autores, tanto residentes en Lima como aquellos que llegan de las diversas provincias, o visitantes extranjeros que generalmente encuentran dificultad para conseguir espacios literarios donde puedan presentar sus obras. La Sociedad de Escritores de Chile ha logrado ello para sus escritores, en Santiago se les ha otorgado una casa donde incluso tienen facilidades de hospedaje. Los escritores argentinos han alcanzado tambièn la promulgaciòn, aunque tìmida, de su propia ley del escritor. Ambas cosas pueden conquistarse en el Perù. La cultura es el vehìculo màs eficaz para salir de la dominaciòn, polìtica, economica y cultural, a la que son sometidos nuestros pueblos. Gramsci nos explicaba una fòrmula para salir de ella con sus conceptos de Hegemonìa y Contrahegemonìa, Josè Martì nos lo pondrìa màs simple con su verso: ''Ser cultos para ser libres'', pero la masa alienada no lo comprende. En todo el mundo los gremios laborales han abandonado el estudio, el trabajo ideològico. Las escuelas sindicales han sido cerradas, los polìticos, supuestamente de izquierda, sólo se preocupan del sueño de sus curules, al tiempo que la prensa pro sistema capitalista adormece y confunde a los pueblos difundiendo las ideas de dominaciòn. Ante esta realidad resulta imperante que los intelectuales y artistas, que interpretan y se identifican con las necesidades del pueblo, generen sus propios espacios donde la cultura sea el agente principal de cambio en nuestra sociedad. Debemos volver a llenar las escuelas sindicales y populares, tal como lo hicieran Gonzàles Prada, Mariàtegui, Jorge del Prado, Isidoro Gamarra o el propio Antenor Orrego y Haya de La Torre, polìticos y sindicalistas de gran estirpe, no comparable con los polìticos putrefactos de nuestros dìas. El pròximo año se cumplirà el XXX Aniversario de los ''Viernes Literarios'' y serìa motivo de jolgorio fraterno que los intelectuales y artistas, sin distinciòn, se unan férreamente con el objetivo de, primero, conseguir la casona en Lima para los ''Viernes Literarios'' y, segundo, coordinar entre todos los gremios, sociedades y asociaciones de escritores para trabajar juntos por la obtención de la ''Ley del Escritor'' en el Perù.

Talibanes derribaron aviòn militar estadounidense.

Restos del avión en la provincia de Ghazni, Afganistán

El portavoz de las fuerzas de EE.UU. en Afganistán, el coronel Sonny Leggett, ha confirmado este 27 de enero la pérdida de un avión militar estadounidense en este país, pero ha descartado que la aeronave fuera derribada. "El bombardero E-11A se estrelló hoy en la provincia de Ghazni, en Afganistán. Mientras que la causa del siniestro está bajo investigación, no hay indicios de que el siniestro fuera causado por fuego enemigo, dijo Legget. Proporcionaremos información adicional cuando esté disponible", reza el mensaje del militar en su cuenta oficial de Twitter. Por su parte, el jefe de Estado Mayor de la Fuerza Aérea de EE.UU., el general David Goldfein, ha afirmado, citado por el portal Military.com, que desconocen "el estado de la tripulación".

Al ver el estado en que quedò la aeronave podemos suprimir que todos los militares americanos abordo perdieron la vida. Loa talibanes asì lo hicieron saber el dìa de hoy, lunes. ''Hemos derribado un aviòn militar estadounidense en la provincia afgana de Ghazni, provocando la muerte de todos los ocupantes de la nave. Fuente: RT.

Antonio Gramsci: Los indiferentes.

Antonio Gramsci, 22 de enero, 1891 – 27 de abril, 1937.

Por Antonio Gramsci

Odio a los indiferentes. Creo que vivir quiere decir tomar partido. Quien verdaderamente vive, no puede dejar de ser ciudadano y partisano. La indiferencia y la abulia son parasitismo, son cobardía, no vida. Por eso odio a los indiferentes.

La indiferencia es el peso muerto de la historia. La indiferencia opera potentemente en la historia. Opera pasivamente, pero opera. Es la fatalidad; aquello con que no se puede contar. Tuerce programas, y arruina los planes mejor concebidos. Es la materia bruta desbaratadora de la inteligencia. Lo que sucede, el mal que se abate sobre todos, acontece porque la masa de los hombres abdica de su voluntad, permite la promulgación de leyes, que sólo la revuelta podrá derogar; consiente el acceso al poder de hombres, que sólo un amotinamiento conseguirá luego derrocar. La masa ignora por despreocupación; y entonces parece cosa de la fatalidad que todo y a todos atropella: al que consiente, lo mismo que al que disiente, al que sabía, lo mismo que al que no sabía, al activo, lo mismo que al indiferente. Algunos lloriquean piadosamente, otros blasfeman obscenamente, pero nadie o muy pocos se preguntan: ¿si hubiera tratado de hacer valer mi voluntad, habría pasado lo que ha pasado? Odio a los indiferentes también por esto: porque me fastidia su lloriqueo de eternos inocentes. Pido cuentas a cada uno de ellos: cómo han acometido la tarea que la vida les ha puesto y les pone diariamente, qué han hecho, y especialmente, qué no han hecho. Y me siento en el derecho de ser inexorable y en la obligación de no derrochar mi piedad, de no compartir con ellos mis lágrimas. Soy partidista, estoy vivo, siento ya en la conciencia de los de mi parte el pulso de la actividad de la ciudad futura que los de mi parte están construyendo. Y en ella, la cadena social no gravita sobre unos pocos; nada de cuanto en ella sucede es por acaso, ni producto de la fatalidad, sino obra inteligente de los ciudadanos. Nadie en ella está mirando desde la ventana el sacrificio y la sangría de los pocos. Vivo, soy partidista. Por eso odio a quien no toma partido, odio a los indiferentes.

11 de febrero de 1917.

Elecciones Perù 2020: resultado a boca de urna.

Jorge Aliaga Cacho desde Escocia.

Estos son los resultados a boca de urna, según la encuesta de AMÉRICA TV e Ipsos Perú.

- Acción Popular: 11.8 %

- Alianza para el Progreso: 8.8 %

- Partido Morado: 8.1 %

- Podemos Perú: 7.4 %

- Fuerza Popular: 7.1 %

- Somos Perú: 7.0 %

- Frepap: 7.0%

- Unión por el Perú: 7.0%

- Frente Amplio: 6.2%

- Juntos por el Perú: 5.0%