Friday, December 19, 2014
Jorge Pérez-Artiles: El restablecimiento de relaciones entre Cuba y EEU...
Jorge Pérez-Artiles: El restablecimiento de relaciones entre Cuba y EEU...: El 17 de diciembre de 2014 pasará a la historia no solamente como el principio del fin del ignominioso y criminal bloqueo de Estados Unidos...
Jorge Pérez-Artiles: El restablecimiento de relaciones entre Cuba y EEU...
Jorge Pérez-Artiles: El restablecimiento de relaciones entre Cuba y EEU...: El 17 de diciembre de 2014 pasará a la historia no solamente como el principio del fin del ignominioso y criminal bloqueo de Estados Unidos...
Monday, December 8, 2014
Sunday, December 7, 2014
LOVE ENLARGES YOUR LIFE
The only thing that I call a real fortune is not hitting the jackpot but the pleasure that comes from loving others and being loved. I love my husband, my children, my family, my friends, my dog and even my neighbors without expecting much in return.
Scientists have long been keen to prove that love makes us healthier. Many studies have proven that women who have healthy loving relationships tend to live longer.
I personally have a great relationship with my husband, after a stressful day there is nothing better for me than seeing him coming home. It produces in me the greatest sensation of comfort. I feel relief and happiness when I see him, at the same time I feel like my blood pressure has changed dramatically. I also noticed that when I hold my partner’s hand I feel a tremendous sense of calmness. I feel safe all of my pent up anxieties and fears quickly melt away.
I am fascinated by a recent study from the University of Carolina that shows hugging others daily and other physical expressions of caring not only improves a person’s mental health it also provides significant health benefits and extends your life span.
Experts point that sex is just one of many ways to express your love. The sense of being physically united to another human is only one aspect of the sexual connection. When you are connected to others not only physically but also spiritually it can help you overcome many of the bad times in your life. My favorite time of the day is coming from work and being able to communicate with my partner and sit together to exchange our experiences of the day
It is even more important to be able to maintain a steady, long lasting and strong bond between two partners than it is to just have great sex. A relationship based on sex only can never be durable in the long run.
Experts are quick to point out that sex is only one aspect of a physical connection and not nearly as powerful as the real magic in a relationship: the bonding of two people. That sense of being united, even during bad times, is a trait that Brian Baker, a psychiatrist at the University of Toronto, calls cohesion. And his research has found that it’s more important to both a person’s health and happiness than a good sex life. They point that sex is only one form of expression of love. Sex is only one aspect of this important connection between two partners. The sense of being united and being able to depend on your partner during the bad times of our life is what really counts.
Longevity is definitely associated with having a supportive and healthy relationship. If you are in a healthy relationship, the supportive part is crucial and alters the brain in a very significant way. A happy marriage relieves stress and has a positive effect on other neural functions.
To love someone is a great feeling, but to love someone and feel loved in return is an even greater feeling. To love someone unconditionally without expecting much in return is the best of the feelings.
Copyright by: Yilva Kalmanson
AUGUST 13, 2012 · 1:21 PM
BEHIND THE GLOSSY MASK WE WEAR
AUGUST 13, 2012 · 1:16 PM
BEHIND THE GLOSSY MASK WE WEAR
During the 19th century, decorative masks often were worn by guests attending parties hosted by aristocrats. Non-aristocrats would use the disguise to cover up a suspicious activity. At those masked balls people could say what they wanted without the fear of being identified by other member of the community.
Masks are a powerful form of disguise, it is something that can be used to conceal the real identity of the person. Probably the most difficult thing in the world is to show others who we really are. I do not even think most of us know who we really are because we are so used to wearing social masks for most of our lives. The problem is that when the time comes that you want to reveal your true self to another we cannot remember how to remove the mask. We have become the mask.
Today, masks are used to represent our roles in society. The game always is between appearance and reality and the endless round of masking and unmasking when we get home. When we are in public we wear our “social masks” permitting us to present different versions of ourselves to other people. Depending on the situation, we have different ways of presenting ourselves at work and in public than we do when we are alone. Some of us like to play the role of the “successful businessman,” others the “clever one,” or the “sexy girl,” the “good mother,” the “playboy” and many others. It all depends of what we want people to believe we are, not necessarily who we really are.
Masks also allow us to feel “safe” and block others from discovering our raw or true nature. Even if normalcy does not exist in our lives, we like to wear a mask of normalcy so that we can project an illusion of wellbeing and hide all our fears and defects.
The key to true happiness is to accept who we really are without thinking about who we are not and what is lacking in our lives. That is why people who live in societies that lack an abundance of material things feel more content with themselves and what they do have because they don’t feel the need to pretend to be better then others. They do not need to use social masks because they are satisfied with what they have and are comfortable living in their own skin – unlike most of us.
The best of all the roles I have found in life is being myself. It allows me to stop thinking about who I “should” be and allows me to begin a new journey of helping others because I want to, not because I want to show others my “good citizen” mask. The meaning of life started for me when I stopped thinking about what others think of me and began a whole new way of thinking about the well being of others.
Acknowledging who we really are is the only way to achieve reality in life.
Masks are a powerful form of disguise, it is something that can be used to conceal the real identity of the person. Probably the most difficult thing in the world is to show others who we really are. I do not even think most of us know who we really are because we are so used to wearing social masks for most of our lives. The problem is that when the time comes that you want to reveal your true self to another we cannot remember how to remove the mask. We have become the mask.
Today, masks are used to represent our roles in society. The game always is between appearance and reality and the endless round of masking and unmasking when we get home. When we are in public we wear our “social masks” permitting us to present different versions of ourselves to other people. Depending on the situation, we have different ways of presenting ourselves at work and in public than we do when we are alone. Some of us like to play the role of the “successful businessman,” others the “clever one,” or the “sexy girl,” the “good mother,” the “playboy” and many others. It all depends of what we want people to believe we are, not necessarily who we really are.
Masks also allow us to feel “safe” and block others from discovering our raw or true nature. Even if normalcy does not exist in our lives, we like to wear a mask of normalcy so that we can project an illusion of wellbeing and hide all our fears and defects.
The key to true happiness is to accept who we really are without thinking about who we are not and what is lacking in our lives. That is why people who live in societies that lack an abundance of material things feel more content with themselves and what they do have because they don’t feel the need to pretend to be better then others. They do not need to use social masks because they are satisfied with what they have and are comfortable living in their own skin – unlike most of us.
The best of all the roles I have found in life is being myself. It allows me to stop thinking about who I “should” be and allows me to begin a new journey of helping others because I want to, not because I want to show others my “good citizen” mask. The meaning of life started for me when I stopped thinking about what others think of me and began a whole new way of thinking about the well being of others.
Acknowledging who we really are is the only way to achieve reality in life.
Yilva Kalmanson
AUGUST 6, 2012 · 9:55 PM
El espejo ya no es tu mejor amigo
El espejo ya no es tu mejor amigoabril 11, 2012La madurez es un proceso que combina los cambios fisiológicos, psicológicos y sociales.. Los cambios en la persona producen respuestas emocionales de tristeza , frustración y rebeldía.Los cambios nos afectan mucho porque nos damos cuenta de que ya no actuamos como antes y que en ciertos aspectos como en el caso de la memoria , por ejemplo , nos afecta pensar que ya no funciona de la misma manera que antes. Un ejemplo de cambios fisiológicos,s, se podrían mencionar los cambios en nuestra piel, pelo, cuerpo. etc. Nos cuesta aceptar que el espejo ya no es nuestro mejor amigo y que la forma de “Pera” que por lo general le llega a una persona de cierta edad, está en camino y viene para quedarse.Por otro lado, madurez significa la búsqueda del significado real de la vida . De un modo u otro dejamos que el “Yo” , que tanto nos agobia,, vuele a otro plano, para darle paso a los seres que realmente amamos y a las cosas realmente apreciamos.. Ahora percibimos el mundo com más claridad, los fracasos son como triunfos. y los triunfos como grandes logros. Nuestros temores se han aplacado un poco más y nuestras metas son más claras.El comienzo de la liberación reside cuando sentimos que hemos alcanzado un cierto nivel de madurez tanto física como emocional. La mayoría de la personas consideran que son más felices porque se sienten más maduros al saber conducir y reconocer sus emociones de una manera más eficaz que cuando eran más jóvenes y con menos experiencia.Siempre va a existir ese niño que vive dentro de nosotros. Algunas veces es saludable liberarlo y llevarlo de paseo pero siempre teniendo en cuenta que el adulto es el jefe y que este es el que debe predominar por encima de todo.By: Yilva Kalmanson
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Thursday, April 17, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
Sunday, April 6, 2014
The New Face of America: Interracial Relationships Flourishing At An Unprecedented Rate
By Danny R. Johnson
WASHINGTON–Hostile stares and epithets were the least of their problems when Edmond and Jeannie Kahn first dated. Twice the couples–he a white Jew, she a Black Baptist–were arrested simply for walking the streets of Baltimore arm in arm.
When they wed in 1957, Maryland law barred interracial marriages, so the ceremony was held in New York City. Although Jeannie had converted by then, the only rabbi who would agree to officiate denied them a huppah and the traditional breaking of glass. As law students at Yale in the 1960s, the couple lived in a basement because no landlord would rent them a flat.
In 1963, the Kahns moved to Washington, D.C., where they raised two sons, Reuben and Jonathan. By 1971, as co-deans of a prestigious school of law located on the East Coast, the high profile couple had received so many death threats that they needed bodyguards.
The boys’ mixed ancestry caused near riots at their public school. One principal said they “brought a dark force to the school” and called for their expulsion.
Now the generational wheel has turned. In 1989, young Reuben married Marna, a white Lutheran from rural Pine Grove, Pennsylvania. Although both a rabbi and a minister officiated, none of Marna’s relatives, except her mother, attended the wedding. Her father fumed, “I can’t believe you expect me to accept a Black person, and a Jewish one at that!” However, with the birth in 1992 of their son Aaron, Marna’s family softened considerably.
The number of interracial marriages registered by the United States Census Bureau has continued to steadily increase since the Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, but also continues representing an absolute minority among the total number of marriages being recorded. According to the 1993 Census, 310,000 interracial marriages were registered by 1970, 651,000 by 1980 and 1,161,000 by 1992, accounting for 0.7%, 1.3% and 2.2% of the total marriage numbers during those years, respectively. With the introduction of the “mixed-race” category, the 2000 Census showed interracial marriage to be somewhat further widespread, accounting for 2,669,558 such marriages, or 4.9% of the total. These statistics do not take into account the mixing of ancestries within the same “race”; e.g. a marriage involving Indian and Japanese ancestries would not be classified as interracial due to the Census regarding both as the same category. Likewise, since Hispanic is not a race but an ethnicity, Hispanic marriages with non-Hispanics are not registered as interracial if both partners are of the same race (i.e. a Black Hispanic marrying a non-Hispanic Black partner).
Intermarriage, of course, is as old as the Bible. Nevertheless, during the past two decades, America has produced the greatest variety of hybrid households in the history of the world. As ever-increasing numbers of couple’s crash through racial, ethnic and religious barriers to invent a life together, Americans are being forced to rethink and redefine themselves. For all the divisive talk of cultural separatism and resurgent ethnic pride, never before has a society struggled so hard to fuse such a jumble of traditions, beliefs and values.
The huddled masses have already given way to the muddled masses. “Marriage is the main assimilator,” says Karen Stephenson, an anthropologist at UCLA. “If you really want to affect change, it’s through marriage and child rearing.” This is not assimilation in the Eurocentric sense of the word: one nation, under white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant rule, divided, with liberty and justice for some.
Rather it is an extended hyphenation. If, say, the daughter of Japanese and Filipino parents marries the son of German and Irish immigrants, together they may beget a Japanese-Filipino-German-Irish-Buddhist-Catholic-American child.
“Assimilation never really happens,” says Stephenson. “Over time you get a bunch of little assimilations.”
The profusion of couples breaching once impregnable barriers of color, ethnicity and faith is startling. Over a period of roughly two decades, the number of interracial marriages in the U.S. has escalated from 310,000 to more than 2.1 million; 82% of those polled in 2008 by Time Magazine know married couples who are of different races. The incidence of births of mixed-race babies has multiplied 26 times as fast as that of any other group. Among Jews, the number marrying out of their faith has shot up from 10% to 52% since 1960. Among Japanese Americans, 65% marry people who have no Japanese heritage; Native Americans have nudged that number to 70%. In both groups, the incidence of children sired by mixed couples exceeds that number to 70%. In both groups, the incidence of children sired by mixed couples exceeds the number born into uni-ethnic homes.
Some critics fret that all this criss-crossing will damage society’s essential “American” core. By this, they usually mean a confluence of attitudes, values and assumptions that drive Americans’ centuries-old quest for a better life. What they fail to acknowledge is that legal, educational and economic changes continuously alter the priorities within that same set of social variables.
A few generations back, religion, race and custom superseded all other considerations. When Kathleen Vaughn and Atul Gawadene, both 27, married last year, however, they based their vision of a shared future on a different set of common values: an upper-middle-class upbringing in tight-knit families, a Stanford education and a love of intellectual pursuits.
Unlike many other mixed couples, Gawadene, an Indian American, and Kathleen, a white Episcopalian of old Southern stock, have always enjoyed a warm reception from both sets of parents. Still, when Kathleen first visited the Gawadene in Ohio, not every one of their friends was ready to celebrate. “One Indian family didn’t want to come because they were concerned about their children being influenced,” Kathleen says. Their wedding in Virginia was a harmonious blend of two cultures: although Kathleen wore a white gown and her minister officiated, the ceremony included readings from both Hindu and Christian texts.
Tortured solutions to mixed-marriage ceremonies are common. Weddings, like funerals, are a time when family resentments, disappointments and expectations bubble to the surface. The tugging and tussling over matters that may seem frivolous set the stage for a couple’s lifelong quest to create an environment that will be welcoming to both families, yet uniquely their own.
Accommodation and compromise only begin at the altar. The qualities that attracted Dan Kalmanson, an Anglo of European extraction, to Yilva Martinez in a Miami reggae club–her Spanish accent, exotic style of dance and playfulness–had a more challenging echo in their married life. After they wed in 1998, Ignacio, Yilva’s then eight-year-old son by a previous marriage, moved from Venezuela to join the couple. Dan, 33, spoke no Spanish, the boy no English. The couple decided to compel Ignacio to speak English. He caught on so fast that his Spanish soon degenerated. Says Yilva: “We have literally forced him to learn Spanish again.”
For Yilva, 35, the struggle is not just to preserve her native tongue; she also wants to suffuse her home, which has grown with the addition of Kristen, 3, with the Latin ethic that values family above all else. “Here, you live to work. There, we work to live,” she says. “In Venezuela we take a two-hour lunch break; we don’t cram in a hamburger at MacDonald’s.”
Children also force mixed couples to confront hard decisions about religion. Blance Speiser, 43, was certain that Mark, 40, would yield if she wanted to raise their two kids Christian, but she also knew that her Jewish husband would never attend church with the family or participate in holiday celebrations. After much soul searching, she opted for a Jewish upbringing. “I knew it would be O.K. as long as the children had some belief,” she says. “I didn’t want a mishmash.” Although Blance remains comfortable with that decision and has grown accustomed to attending synagogue with her family, she admits that it pricks when Brad, 7, says, “Mommy, I wish you were Jewish.” Other couples expose their families to both religions, and then leave the choice to the kids.
When it comes to racial identity, many couples feel that a child should never have to “choose” between parents. The 1990 U.S. Census form, with its “Black,” “White” and “Other” boxes, particularly grated. ” `Other’ is not acceptable, pure and simple,” says Nancy Brown, 40. “It is psychologically damaging to force somebody to choose one identity when physiologically and biologically they are more than one.” Nancy, who is white, thinks the 2000 Census form was correct to have listed a “mixed-race” box for her two daughters; her Black husband Roosevelt, 44, argues that there should be no race box at all. Both agree that people should be able to celebrate all parts of their heritage without conflict.
“It’s like an equation,” says Nancy, who is president of an interracial family support group. “Interracial marriage that works equals multiracial children at ease with their mixed identity, which equals more people in the world who can deal with this diversity.”
The world still has much to learn about living with diversity. “What people say, what people do and what they say they do are three entirely different things,” says anthropologist Stephenson. “We are walking contradictions.”
Kyoung-Hi Song, 37, was born in Korea but lived much of her youth abroad as her father was posted from one United Nations assignment to the next. Despite that cosmopolitan upbringing, her parents balked when Kyoung-Hi married Robert Dickson, a WASP from Connecticut. They boycotted the 2005 wedding, and have not contacted their daughter since.
Intolerance need not be that blatant to inflict wounds. If Tony Jefferson, 34, and Marion Sakuda Flores, 28, have a child, that hypothetical Japanese-Filipino-German-Irish-Buddhist-Catholic-American will become flesh and blood. In their one year of marriage, Tony says, “I’ve heard friends say stupid stuff about Asians right in front of Marion. It is real hypocritical because a lot of them have Mexican or Black girlfriends or wives.”
Sometimes the more subtle the rejection, the sharper the sting,” says Sandy Mills, 29, the daughter of Black and Native American parents, who is married to Dave Grosz, a white European immigrant: “I know that people are tolerating me, not accepting me.”
Such pain is evidence that America has yet to harvest the full rewards of its founding principles. The land of immigrants may be giving way to a land of hyphenations, but the hyphen still divides even as it compounds. Those who intermarry have perhaps the strongest sense of what it will take to return America to an unhyphenated whole. “Its American culture that we all share,” says Mills. “We should capitalize on that.” Perhaps her two Native American-Black-white-Hungarian-French-Catholic-Jewish-American children will lead the way.
Danny R. Johnson is a Freelance Journalist based in Washington, D.C.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
CONTRARIAN AND CAST OUT
To others it appears that we like to be independent and free
thinkers, we create our own philosophy out of life and refuse to be followers. We don’t care about going to the right clubs,
meeting the right people, dressing conventionally, doing what our friends like to do, mimicking what celebrities
say is important, and following the latest trends as seen on television.
Instead
it is a natural force coming from deep inside us to make us feel special and
different from the rest. We feel attracted by our own philosophy of how the
world really works, we tend to dismiss most fads as trivial
and silly, and if lots of people become involved in a new cause célèbre you
quickly become sick of hearing about it.
If you
resemble the description above, that means you are a true contrarian like me. A
contrarian is a person who always says the opposite of what is popular or
popularly believed. Refusing to imitate the masses when it comes to buying car,
selecting a movie or even buying a certain stocks knowing that everyone else is
selling them.
A contrarian is also a person who takes
up a contrary a position that is opposed to that of the majority, without
caring what others think. In addition, you
can be a contrarian by refusing to live a boring life by simply trying to blend
in with others and desperately trying to belong to a group for fear of being
cast out or ostracized.
We classic
contrarians are always ready to say what is truly on our minds and not afraid
to offer a true opinion on a topic. I think my true nature is to be a contrarian
but does not automatically label me as a troublemaker. I just think my basic
instinct is to automatically oppose anything that appears conventional. I like to act as a free thinker in this world
and not defined by other people, family members or cultural influences.
I like having
my own opinions and being a counter intuitive person gives me a different perspective
on life and the opportunity to use my beliefs and imagination. Just
being myself, being creative and having my own opinions enhances my self-esteem.
And it does not cause harm to others by simply disagreeing with them.
I enjoy having
a balance between analytical thinking and creative contrarian thinking which
has helped me to get through some of the biggest tsunamis in my life. For my
own sake and never with the intention of raising eyebrows, I feel more
confortable managing my own opinions and try to see life from other angles. The
best way to explore reality is by developing your imagination so that you can
see life from many different vantage points without reducing it to popular
beliefs and narrows way of thinking.
Knowing
that the world is not always perfect, I have not always made the right
decisions and sometimes I have made the wrong choices but in general I have
always had sound moral principles and a good sense of responsibility. This
makes me feel confident about my personal philosophy of living and comfortable
in my own skin. If others don’t like
what I say, how I dress, my political views or whom I choose to be friends with
then I simply shrug and I say I simply don’t care. It’s their problem that they
only want to “fit in” and not mine.
I
have developed an art to being a contrarian in a conventional thinking world
just simply by not accepting what society dictates as the norm but I do it
without insulting or harming others. They do have a right to live their lives
the way they want to. It just won’t be as interesting or as much fun.
Yilva
Kalmanson
Sunday, January 19, 2014
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