Hallazgos Arqueológicos

Desde ya me estoy disfrutando la cantidad de visitantes que el título de esta mi entrada dominical creará. La verdad se refiere a un descubrimiento que hice mientras estaba buscando unas notas que tomé sobre El Principito de Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Aunque no las encontré lo que si pude "escarbar" fueron una serie de poemas, algunos inéditos y algunos de verdaderos poetas copiados a mano o en la computadora durante la década de los 90. Anteriormente había hecho mención y había compartido un par de poemas de este "Folder Español" HISPASA de pasta azul que tengo por acá en mi tierra madrina. Es divertido leer las babosadas que uno ha escrito en su pasado. Pero lo que es realmente interesante es (1)tratar de recordar/entender/relatar el origen de estos poemas y (2) encontrar cierta afinidad con el tiempo presente.

Con toda discreción me pregunto ¿será que no he crecido emocionalmente en estos 10 o 15 años? ¿será que la historia, mi historia, es circular? ¿por qué es que no puedo escribir palabras tan "apasionadas" en estos días (en los que no sale el sol sino tu rostro)? ¿será que estoy viendo "micos aparejados" (lo cual realmente es una imagen grotesca y perturbadora)?

Bueno, les dejo unos cuantos poemitas para que uds. juzguen si el patojo que le gustaba gastar tinta tenía algún futuro como escribidor o si al menos iba a tener suerte con las patojas. ¡Ay si uno pudiera re-escribir la historia! Hago una vez más el énfasis que estas líneas fueron escritas circa 1994 (a principios de la U pues).
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Las palabras se posan
sobre tu cabello,
sin embargo,
sigues indiferente
a su vuelo de cortejo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
En tus ojos
una noche
soñé que sumergía
mis labios
en busca de ti
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
El mundo y tu sonrisa
tan pequeños
y aun así tan inmensos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ama la noche a sus estrellas
Aman los árboles a sus nidos
Aman los ríos a los peces
y sus orillas a las serpientes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inútil,
la distancia,
rellena las cavidades,
de mi corazón palpitante
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Estas allí,
con tus ojos de siempre
y tu mirada de "nunca"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Llené mi alma
con tu mirada
y no la he querido vaciar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hoy me levanté con la impresión
de haber conocido al amor de mi vida...
...otra vez
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The importance of being discrete

La Vie s'en va...
Una mujer, con su mirada,
Me dice: - "Vívela"
La Vida a gritos,
-"Sigue a esa mujer"
From Poem #10 of "Luna Park" by Luis Cardoza y Aragón

Have you ever been asked "How life is treating you?" I get it once in a while and I always try to be witty and answer "At least she is still treating me". Probably this exchange takes place more commonly in Spanish, thus the gender of La Vida. Now that is one way of putting it... life, my dearest dear is still talking to me, and like to Cardoza it is yelling at me. I sometimes feel to be holding on dear life... making this super human effort just to keep my head afloat.
Lately, though, the feeling has changed, or at least is not that frequent. I have a feeling of accomplishment. Back in the academic year 2004/2005 I was given a task to reproduce some results published by my co-supervisor JPL and one of his former students back in the mid-90s where they used a data analysis technique called Latent Class Analysis (or LCA among friends) to classify the responses and the respondents of a study using one of the experimental tasks we used quite often in our lab. It was a long long year... not my brightest or my best moment, but not my dullest or worst either. I kept hitting my head against the wall (alas! only figuratively this time) over and over again, at school, at home, in my head and in my heart. Needless to say I survived with just a few scratches on my academic self. Well, fast forward to April Fool's day 2008 and there I was, presenting on the last class of the last course requirement for my degree and I was able to slip right into my presentation (which was about other type of data analysis) my first ever working LCA. No reworking someone else's results or even ideas. The data came from a larger project we are conducting in my lab, but the conceptualization of my variable, the recoding, interest, motivation, and final "measurement" was mine.

If you are still reading this quite boring post you may wonder what does this has to do with being discrete... or saying to yourself "huh?" or even "WTF? Manolo". Oh well, I will keep some details to myself because I am being discrete... but in any case, discrete is used to describe those characteristics (we call them "variables" in psych. lingo) that "classify" or "order" people (we call them "participants" or a more general "sample" or when we feel really almighty "population"). For example, city or country of origin, that is a discrete variable. The place in which you get to the finish line, which is a rank, is also a discrete variable. The difference between first and second might or might not be the same between second and third, it just "orders" the runners. That is what LCA does, it creates classes, it puts people into statistical boxes that then we can play with.

Psychologists have this inferiority complex (it is not just me, trust me) and we are always defensive against "hard sciences" and try to come up with this "scientific" explanations to things and we would like to believe that as gravity was once explained by supernatural forces and now it is an undeniable physical law, one day our little "ideas" about the world will also be one day recognized by means of neuro-this or gentico-that as "real". Personally I believe reality is a construction, but that is another topic. The point being that in our quest for "hard evidence" and for "hard cash" from science councils' grants we tend to pump up our explanations of things. We measure everything and we create scales (read questionnaires, surveys, etc.) for everything. We test them, we calibrate them, we "factor-analyse" them. We make them prim and proper for the stage of academia. And that stage of academia requires them to look nice and usually to "behave" like speed or gravity or luminosity or whatever it is "scientists-out-there" study. And because for the physicist or the astronomer or even the engineer it is not enough to say that well, the object falls faster on Earth than in the Moon but it has to say how faster we assume that to be part of the science club psychology needs also to say how much of anxiety or intelligence or social desirability or racism this or that person has. Yes and no are not enough. Discrete answers are not enough.

This is the beginning of a rant I have about being discrete. About the good qualities of being able to put things and people into boxes. Not of labeling in itself. But of accepting the limits of behavioural sciences in trying to understand the most fascinating organism on the face of Gaea. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes "une pipe, n'est-ce pas un pipe". They don't have to have less than 12 points on the BDI or gain 10 IQ points just by looking at them. Sometimes, just sometimes, a "yes-or-no" answer is enough. And sometimes it is not about getting to the finish line first, but to know how to get to the finish line.

Photo: "Homage to M.C. Escher" by the author. Taken on Niagara Falls Park on June 2007.

Primavera

(...)porque en tales días obtuvieron los judíos paz contra sus enemigos,
y en este mes la aflicción se trocó en alegría y el llanto en festividad;
que los convirtieran en días de alegres festines y mutuos regalos,
y de donaciones a los pobres (Ester 9:22; Nueva Biblia de Jerusalén-NBJ)

La primavera ha iniciado con un nuevo día (o Norouz) y mientras en Toronto esperamos que finalmente el verde empiece a crecer y los árboles se re-vistan con sus hojas y sus flores. Este año tres celebraciones se han conjugado en esta semana primaveral: El año nuevo Persa(cómo me lo recordó este año la entrada en [daily dose of imagery] ver también el enlace sobre Norouz) que inicia el primer día de primavera o sea en el equinoccio de primavera. Este año, junto con el primer día de la primavera, los judíos celebran la fiesta de los Purim, siguiendo el relato del libro de Ester en el cual gracias a la intervención de la bella reina, el pueblo judío fue salvado del exterminio mientras estaban exiliados en Babilonia bajo el mando Persa (coincidentemente). La historia es una de aquellas sangrientas historias del antiguo testamento en las que se exageran los números de muertes de enemigos del pueblo elegido, sin embargo no es una historia solamente de venganza, sino de acción de gracias y de cómo los oprimidos, gracias a la intervención divina, salen victoriosos frente a la aflicción y el terror. Personalmente Purim me recuerda el haber compartido el año pasado unas galletas de forma triangular que dicen representar (depende de quien se le pregunte) la oreja o el sombrero de Amán, el enemigo del pueblo judío que pretendía hacer que el rey Asuero decretara la muerte de ese "pueblo disperso y diseminado entre los pueblos de todas las provincias (del) reino, con sus leyes, distintas de las de todas las naciones, y que no cumplen las leyes reales" (Ester 3:8, NBJ). Gracias al encanto y los banquetes y la oración de la reina Ester, el rey Asuero entra en razón y la balanza cambia de lado y los judíos terminan "exterminando" a sus enemigos ayudados de un nuevo decreto real. Mi buena amiga que me convidó sus galletas y su cultura anda de viaje por Nueva Zelanda en estas fechas. Así que le mandaré electrónicamente de alguna manera un saludo de Purim.

Por otro lado el año nuevo Persa es personificado en mi mitología personal por otra buena amiga, la cual le debo el haber empezado este camino de búsqueda de identidad. De origen Persa, pero con afinidad a la cultura latinoamericana, SM hizo un viaje a Guatemala en el verano del 2005 y previo a su viaje le pude compartir lo que yo "sabía" sobre mi amada matria. El convertirme en un "informate nativo" y poder reflejar mis opiniones y añoranzas despertó en mí esa "chapinidad" que al día de hoy escapa definición para mí. Así que sin saber mucho de la cultura Persa, esta amistad me hace respetar y apreciar esta celebración del primer día de la primavera que antecede al cristianismo.

La celebración que es quizás más conocida para quienes lean esta entrada es la Semana Santa. Anoche la luna llena me recordó la conmemoración de la última cena y la visita a sagrarios que al menos un par de veces hice con mi abuelita materna. No puedo decir que he dejado de ser cristiano, ni siquiera que he dejado de ser Cristiano o Católico, pues esa formación es la que me ha forjado como el ser humano que soy. Sin embargo, no atiendo a ninguna comunidad y no he pisado el interior de una iglesia si no es con una cámara y cómo turista en mucho mucho tiempo. El fervor de Semana Santa que magistralmente es pintado en LAGDP permea mi ser. Acá en mi tierra madrina se celebra bajo el nombre de "Easter" con colores pastel, una comida familiar, chocolate, conejos, y un fin de semana largo. Más allá, pero sin ser necesariamente opuesto o excluido, del rito y connotación cristiana la celebración de Easter es la celebración de la renovación. Tema que se siente en el ambiente cuando se habla de la primavera. Se pueden ver o rebuscar las raíces cristianas en este festival del sinergismo, en este experimento de multiculturalidad que es Toronto y Canadá en general. En las iglesias se verá y se hablará acerca de la resurrección de Cristo por la cual la salvación de las naciones fue consumada.

En mi reflexión personal he podido conjugar todas estas ideas en un saludo y un deseo de primavera: Qué la renovación toque a tu puerta y que la invites a pasar dentro de tu casa

Fotos: Passiflora caerulea (Pasionaria), arriba tomada en la casa de mis abuelos en la zona 6 de la ciudad de Guatemala, la de abajo tomada en Montreal en las afueras del Oratoire St-Joseph

Overdue | Pride

On my shared items I have added a note from elPeriódico, the Guatemalan newspaper I use almost exclusively to keep connected and informed about what's up in my motherland. This is my interpretation and reaction of the news as a self-exiled middle-class Toronteco. The news headline reads as follows (my own translation from Spanish):

Presidents vetoes restitution of death penalty

Executive affirms that the decision is based in the fact that the decree violates six articles of the Constitution and because it would freeze relations with supportive countries

A couple of notes: (1) How hard it is to translate a headline from the beautiful Spanish language into the practical English language. (2) The "executive" refers to the section of the government headed by the president and conformed by the different ministries in charge of the actual functioning (execution) of the government, as opposed to the "legislative" (in charge of spitting out laws) and the "judicial"(in charge of enforcing the laws through the different courts).

I honestly have to say that I have not followed this issue closely. Apparently, the previous Guatemalan government left the death penalty "in the air" and it was up to the new government to figure out what to do with it. It seems that the "legislative", that is the Congress, approved the restitution of the death penalty. Both the current "executive" and the "legislative" are dominated by the same party, thus it is interesting that the president vetoes something approved by his own party. However, that is his prerogative and I simply can applaud any sign he can give of being "in power".

During my quarter of a century growing up in Guatemala the death penalty was a non-issue. It existed, it was enforced every now and then, it was even broadcast on the news at noon. I learned compassion, thought, through the eyes of my Tía Luz who served somewhat as our nanny and to whom I am in debt for who I am almost as much as my parents. Her reaction to anyone being incarcerated or taking in by police, or worse, anyone who was in death row was Pobrecito ("poor little guy"). Compassion for a criminal is something that is not often seen, particularly in Guatemala where the sole mention of the "Human Rights" in relation to common criminals provokes the outcry of the general public as a way of letting people get away with their wrongdoings. Now that I think about it to put it in black and white pixels Human Rights have so many different meanings in Guatemala. On one side we have the issue of the genocide of those who were fighting against the government (blowing up the extremely necessary and scarce infrastructure of the country, I must say to echo my "maternal" point of view); those who are seen by the international community as criminals against humanity, the masterminds and executors of the massacres during the civil war and even after the peace accords of 1996. And then we have the Human Rights of the common criminal (or even the organized one) which are completely disregarded by the common public. Linchamientos ("lynching") was (is?) a usual way of the people of taking the law into their own hands, as democratic as an open town hall. Out of frustration, the general public chased the criminal (be it someone who was stealing a pair of sunglasses or someone being suspected or trying to kidnap a baby), beat him/her up almost to death, until "the authorities" arrive. Is in this context that Human Rights are looked down by Guatemalans, not in the context of the massacres.

Thus, this double standard (death people have Human Rights, but criminals barely alive don't) permeates the discussion of the death penalty in my dear motherland. The compassion instilled by my Tía Luz and encouraged by this country I live in now (my brother calls it my "godmother"-land) have created a very clear position about the death penalty: It is NEVER justified. To give anyone (the people, the judges, the government, the church) the power to decide over someone else life is to give them absolute power, and you know what the saying says, human nature will tend to be corrupted by this power. The death penalty is there along the proliferation of nuclear weapons, is better not to have them regardless of their appeal and potential "usefulness". Revenge is usually the motor behind those who cry for the death penalty, not justice and neither it is the welfare of the many (even though "getting rid" of a few bad apples might seem "good" for society).

In a couple of occasions I have been reminded in Canada that my country of origin still practices the death penalty and thus it is placed within the box of "medieval" justice systems (along with our big partner to the South). And that is why today I feel pride to share the news that come from my motherland. A president, regardless of the public opinion and the political cost, is saying that the death penalty has no place in a modern civilized society, it is unconstitutional (although so it is abortion, but that is a horse of a different colour) and in order to be part of the global village Guatemala has to find real solutions to its problems with violence and crime. Violence cannot fight violence. Today I am proud of this overdue position.

What do you think about the death penalty? Is it still applied where you live? Isn't it just a short-term lazy measure to combat criminality? Who has the moral solvency to decide over the life of someone else?