Luciana Lhullier
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Terence answered to his neighbor, who told him to mind his own business: Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. - I am a man, nothing human is alien to me. Immigration is always a very curious issue to me. Especially in the Americas. As I write, I keep thinking that I´d simply not exist, as I know myself, had my ancestors been detained at customs. Those were other times,though. At that time, Europe was "exporting" its unwanted or extra people. On my mother´s side, they were new christians ( or, if you wish, forcibily baptised old jews) who had to leave Portugal around the end of the 18th century, and settled in Northeastern Brazil. On my father´s side, my great grandparents, after escaping an arson attack on their house in France, and having seen everything they had built burned down to ashes, decided to come to this promising land in the Southern hemisphere, and were able to make a living here. My great grand father, Jean-Baptiste Lhullier, became the town photographer and even changed his name to Baptista, because he felt Brazilian. Most immigrants leave their homeland because they want to live better, or live. It´s as simple as that. All in all, it can be a matter of perspective whether you spend money and energy on building walls and fences, so people won´t come to ruin your beautiful garden(we know, as members of the human race, where misanthropy can lead us to), or on helping communities, so people don´t need to leave them, and are able to grow their own gardens. Just some thoughts on where I stand in this world... http://bit.ly/yq8ai(posted previously in my personal blog, Luciana´s ocean) … Read More
October 13, 2009 | In History
Luciana Lhullier commented on Buildings Speak to Us on August 26, 2009, 3:20 PM
Hi Tim, I like your idea. In other words, the ideal would be that the innovative could get along with the ancient. Just like with people. The co-existence and harmony, despite the differences, in the buildings would somehow reflect what went on with people. Thanks for commenting!
Luciana Lhullier commented on the new guard : how latin america's creative class can help the region on August 7, 2009, 7:29 PM
Roberto, please allow me to add some thoughts to your idea, for the purpose of discussion. The concepts of Latin America, or Africa, or Asia, for that matter, are really difficult to work with, for the reason that they are very fragile. What is Latin America? Is it a group of countries with some affinity between them or is it a group of countries geographically located south of Canada and the U.S.? If we´re countries with some affinity, then what affinity is that? Language? If so, Brazil is out. Customs? So diverse. What´s true for one is not true for another. Religion? I don´t think we have uniformity in there either. Culture? I don´t think there´s a Latin American lifestyle or art. Regimes or Systems of Government? We have democracies side by side with dictatorships. So that is ruled out as well. Geography? Maybe. To tell you the truth, I think Latin America is a romantic idea we like to nurture, as if it would help us create some identity in the world, and exempt us to try and be competitive. We even create Latin American records for our athletes... Living inside this Latin American fictional bubble gives us the excuse to complain we´re not noticed enough. Do we notice what´s around us, or do we just want to be heard but never care to hear? So far, I see Latin America as a group of teenage countries desperately searching for identity, but missing the point that the only acknowledgment that we really need is our own. For good and for bad.
Luciana Lhullier commented on A Kindle in Every Backpack on August 2, 2009, 7:45 PM
It sounds like a very good idea. It saves space, paper, and the information is constantly updated. Thinking about all the costs governments around the world have with printing, publishing, and distributing material for the public schools, that´ll likely be replaced shortly, it could work.
My interests are education, translation, cultural studies and global issues.
Luciana Lhullier commented on How Scary Are Those Swine Flu Stats, Really? on August 26, 2009, 9:00 PM
Public health officials´ delay in taking action are enervating worldwide, it seems. This afternoon, with the announcement of more Influenza A related deaths, with a total of 557 and others being still investigated, Brazil is at the top of the list. The city where I live, Passo Fundo, had the first fatal case, back on June 28th, and it was an imported one,from Argentina. At that time, even knowing that the neighboring countries were in the middle of an epidemic, the Brazilian Health Ministry confiscated Tamiflu from pharmacies and centralized it at their headquarters. It was only to be distributed if necessary. *sigh* and only to designated hospitals. Physicians started getting desperate of seeing young, healthy people die in front of them, and not being able to do much. In mid-July, Tamiflu was finally distributed to hospitals. Unbelievable. It was then that, with ERs packed and Intensive care operating beyond their capacity, physicians in Passo Fundo formed an unofficial health committee, got in touch with other physicians in Mexico and in the US to learn what they were doing, and broke the Ministry protocol. They started treating any suspect case with Tamiflu if the symptoms were serious, since the Influenza A tests were taking more than a week and the medication is more effective in the first 48 hours. What the medical community has been saying is that, had the ministry been less bureaucratic and centralizing, lots of lives could have been saved.