The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra) - official video
Published on Jul 5, 2011
Lyrics
"Somebody That I Used To Know"
(feat. Kimbra)
[Gotye:]
Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember
You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad that it was over
But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
[Kimbra:]
Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know
[Gotye:]
But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know
[x2]
Somebody
(I used to know)
Somebody
(Now you're just somebody that I used to know)
(I used to know)
(That I used to know)
(I used to know)
Somebody
Special thanks to A.N. C.M.
Source:www.youtube.com/http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/gotye/somebodythatiusedtoknow.html
In this blog, teachers, students and all those who have some kind of interest in the English language will find useful, interesting, curious and funny things to be used in their classes or for their personal enjoyment.
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
POL/SOC/GINT-Corrupción y responsabilidad penal empresaria
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Corrupción y responsabilidad penal empresaria
Junto al tratamiento del proyecto para prevenir los sobornos a funcionarios, la dirigencia empresarial debería llevar adelante un hondo examen de conciencia
20 DE JUNIO DE 2017
Muy difícilmente podría haber corrupción en el sector público sin actores privados que la consintieran y la materializaran. Es cierto que la corrupción privada llega a tener menor repercusión que la que se registra en el Estado, pero su importancia es similar desde el punto de vista moral. Porque así como hay un funcionario público que suele beneficiarse económicamente de un soborno, del otro lado del mostrador hay un particular o una empresa que, al pagarlo, suele obtener una ganancia que normalmente supera aquel desembolso ilegal, muchas veces merced a la existencia de sobreprecios. Y lo más grave de todo es que ambas partes lucran a expensas de los contribuyentes y de la población, que se verá, en definitiva, perjudicada con una obra pública o un servicio de menor calidad o más costoso.
Por eso resulta importante que avance en el Congreso de la Nación el tratamiento del proyecto de ley de responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas, impulsado por el oficialismo, con el fin de adaptar el sistema penal argentino a los estándares internacionales en materia de delitos de corrupción y soborno transnacional, fijados por la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (Ocde).
Esta organización internacional aprobó una convención sobre lucha contra el cohecho de funcionarios públicos extranjeros en las transacciones comerciales internacionales que fue oportunamente ratificada por nuestro país.
La iniciativa legal, que cuenta con dictamen de un plenario de comisiones de la Cámara de Diputados, establece duras sanciones para aquellas empresas que cometan delitos contra la administración pública, que pueden ir desde multas hasta la suspensión de sus actividades.
También propicia la introducción de la figura del colaborador eficaz, con el propósito de que aquellas compañías "arrepentidas" puedan llevar a cabo acuerdos de cooperación con la Justicia para que, a cambio de información precisa sobre el delito cometido y el pago de una multa reparatoria integral y la devolución de los bienes o las ganancias obtenidas en forma mal habida, cese la acción penal en contra de la empresa.
El proyecto ha recogido apoyos en distintos sectores de la sociedad, incluso del empresariado, como la Cámara de Comercio de los Estados Unidos en la Argentina (Amcham), que ha destacado que la mayoría de sus asociados viene trabajando desde hace décadas en programas de cumplimiento a nivel internacional que comprenden políticas anticorrupción para sus empleados y directivos, además de recibir auditorías periódicas de sus casas matrices, extensivas a sus proveedores y clientes que integran sus cadenas de valores.
Entre otras cosas, la Amcham ha considerado imprescindible que se incorpore el criterio de atribución de responsabilidad subjetiva. Esto es, la responsabilidad por el hecho propio basada en la deficiencia organizacional para prevenir y combatir la realización de actos ilícitos.
En tal sentido, sería positivo que el proyecto que evalúa el Congreso contemple que una empresa sea responsable penalmente por los actos ilícitos de sus proveedores, contratistas, agentes o distribuidores, pero sólo cuando se hubiera valido de ellos para cometer o impulsar un acto de corrupción en su beneficio.
Para contar con una ley de transparencia eficaz, ésta debe ser clara y de fácil interpretación, para evitar que dé lugar a subjetividades al momento en que deba aplicarse.
El fenómeno de la corrupción pública en la Argentina, profundizado en los últimos años, requiere normas que garanticen transparencia. Resultaría, sin embargo, igualmente saludable un hondo examen de conciencia por parte de sectores empresariales que durante demasiado tiempo, en lugar de rebelarse frente a la fuerte injerencia estatal en la economía y ante las exageradas regulaciones del poder burocrático, buscaron sacar provecho de esa situación cediendo ante los pedidos de coimas y alimentando a funcionarios todopoderosos capaces de asignar porciones de mercado y que sólo procuraron enriquecerse gracias a la función pública en lugar de servir al bien común.
Fuente:www.lanacion.com.ar
Corrupción y responsabilidad penal empresaria
Junto al tratamiento del proyecto para prevenir los sobornos a funcionarios, la dirigencia empresarial debería llevar adelante un hondo examen de conciencia
20 DE JUNIO DE 2017
Muy difícilmente podría haber corrupción en el sector público sin actores privados que la consintieran y la materializaran. Es cierto que la corrupción privada llega a tener menor repercusión que la que se registra en el Estado, pero su importancia es similar desde el punto de vista moral. Porque así como hay un funcionario público que suele beneficiarse económicamente de un soborno, del otro lado del mostrador hay un particular o una empresa que, al pagarlo, suele obtener una ganancia que normalmente supera aquel desembolso ilegal, muchas veces merced a la existencia de sobreprecios. Y lo más grave de todo es que ambas partes lucran a expensas de los contribuyentes y de la población, que se verá, en definitiva, perjudicada con una obra pública o un servicio de menor calidad o más costoso.
Por eso resulta importante que avance en el Congreso de la Nación el tratamiento del proyecto de ley de responsabilidad penal de las personas jurídicas, impulsado por el oficialismo, con el fin de adaptar el sistema penal argentino a los estándares internacionales en materia de delitos de corrupción y soborno transnacional, fijados por la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (Ocde).
Esta organización internacional aprobó una convención sobre lucha contra el cohecho de funcionarios públicos extranjeros en las transacciones comerciales internacionales que fue oportunamente ratificada por nuestro país.
La iniciativa legal, que cuenta con dictamen de un plenario de comisiones de la Cámara de Diputados, establece duras sanciones para aquellas empresas que cometan delitos contra la administración pública, que pueden ir desde multas hasta la suspensión de sus actividades.
También propicia la introducción de la figura del colaborador eficaz, con el propósito de que aquellas compañías "arrepentidas" puedan llevar a cabo acuerdos de cooperación con la Justicia para que, a cambio de información precisa sobre el delito cometido y el pago de una multa reparatoria integral y la devolución de los bienes o las ganancias obtenidas en forma mal habida, cese la acción penal en contra de la empresa.
El proyecto ha recogido apoyos en distintos sectores de la sociedad, incluso del empresariado, como la Cámara de Comercio de los Estados Unidos en la Argentina (Amcham), que ha destacado que la mayoría de sus asociados viene trabajando desde hace décadas en programas de cumplimiento a nivel internacional que comprenden políticas anticorrupción para sus empleados y directivos, además de recibir auditorías periódicas de sus casas matrices, extensivas a sus proveedores y clientes que integran sus cadenas de valores.
Entre otras cosas, la Amcham ha considerado imprescindible que se incorpore el criterio de atribución de responsabilidad subjetiva. Esto es, la responsabilidad por el hecho propio basada en la deficiencia organizacional para prevenir y combatir la realización de actos ilícitos.
En tal sentido, sería positivo que el proyecto que evalúa el Congreso contemple que una empresa sea responsable penalmente por los actos ilícitos de sus proveedores, contratistas, agentes o distribuidores, pero sólo cuando se hubiera valido de ellos para cometer o impulsar un acto de corrupción en su beneficio.
Para contar con una ley de transparencia eficaz, ésta debe ser clara y de fácil interpretación, para evitar que dé lugar a subjetividades al momento en que deba aplicarse.
El fenómeno de la corrupción pública en la Argentina, profundizado en los últimos años, requiere normas que garanticen transparencia. Resultaría, sin embargo, igualmente saludable un hondo examen de conciencia por parte de sectores empresariales que durante demasiado tiempo, en lugar de rebelarse frente a la fuerte injerencia estatal en la economía y ante las exageradas regulaciones del poder burocrático, buscaron sacar provecho de esa situación cediendo ante los pedidos de coimas y alimentando a funcionarios todopoderosos capaces de asignar porciones de mercado y que sólo procuraron enriquecerse gracias a la función pública en lugar de servir al bien común.
Fuente:www.lanacion.com.ar
20 de JUNIO: DÍA DE LA BANDERA
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
20 de JUNIO: DÍA DE LA BANDERA
Aurora (canción a la bandera argentina)
Published on Mar 31, 2010
El aria "Alta en el cielo" ó "Canción/Oración a la Bandera", perteneciente a la ópera Aurora del compositor y director argentino Héctor Panizza, es utilizada en Argentina como canción de saludo a la bandera.
La ópera Aurora fue un encargo del gobierno argentino para la primera temporada del Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires.
Originalmente en italiano y con libreto de Luigi Illica, es considerada la primera ópera nacional argentina; estrenada el 5 de septiembre de 1908.
En 1943 fue traducida al español por Héctor Quesada y Angel Pettita y reestrenada en castellano en 1945. Posteriormente un decreto nacional declaró el aria como saludo a la bandera.
La traducción efectuada al texto original en italiano resultó sumamente creativa, consignando términos que no existen en el castellano y referencias a elementos desconocidos en la Argentina generando de esta manera errores de interpretación.
El -aguila guerrera- es una metáfora con la cual se compara a un águila de color azul y blanco con la bandera nacional.
El escritor Juan Sasturain escribe sobre los neologismos: En el original italiano, no hay -aurora irradial- (que tampoco existe en el castellano) sino -aureola irradiale-; es decir, la aureola de rayos del amanecer que ilumina al águila.
El verso -il rostro dor punta de freccia appare- se tradujo como punta de flecha el áureo rostro imita; cuando en italiano -rostro- significa en realidad pico: es decir que el pico del águila iluminado, parece una punta de flecha (el extremo metálico del asta).
El verso -porpora il teso collo e forma stello- fue traducido como -Y forma estela al purpurado cuello-, esto quiere decir que los rayos del Sol enrojecen el tenso, alargado cuello del águila y forman el tallo -stelo- (el asta de la bandera); por lo tanto stelo no significa estela, sino tallo.
Letra:
Alta en el cielo un águila guerrera,
audaz se eleva en vuelo triunfal,
azul un ala del color del cielo,
azul un ala del color del mar.
Así en la alta aurora irradial,
punta de flecha el áureo rostro imita
y forma estela al purpurado cuello,
el ala es paño, el águila es bandera.
Es la bandera de la patria mía
del sol nacida que me ha dado Dios;
es la bandera de la patria mia,
del sol nacida, que me ha dado Dios;
es la bandera de la patria mía,
del sol nacida que me ha dado Dios
La asombrosa vida del joven Belgrano
© Proporcionado por THX Medios S.A.
El primer "Tano" de estas tierras fue Domenico Belgrano Peri (aquí lo castellanizaron Pérez) nacido en Oneglia, en el golfo de Génova, que perteneció en sus tiempos al reino de Cerdeña. Domenico emigró a los 19 años, hacia 1749, y se radicó en Cádiz, ciudad española muy vinculada a las Indias (es decir, América española) que tenía 50 mil habitantes a mediados del siglo XVIII. Abundaban entre ellos los comerciantes italianos y franceses. En los jardines gaditanos se veían árboles de América como el ombú, el jacarandá, el drago, el ficus.
El señor Belgrano Peri se embarcó en 1751, hacia Buenos Aires (a bordo del navío El Poloni) junto a su primo don Angelo Castelli para probar suerte aquí. Los dos tendrían hijos varones que pasarían a la historia como revolucionarios argentinos.
Belgrano salió de aquella Cádiz alegre y próspera, pero desembarcó en una Buenos Aires pobretona. La ciudad, la famosa ciudad-puerto de la historia… ¡no tenía puerto!. Los barcos anclaban en pleno Río de la Plata. De la nave se pasaba a unos botes de remo, y luego los pasajeros debían montar a caballo, para llegar hasta la orilla empapados, o amontonarse en unas carretas de ruedas altas. A veces, recorrían el tramo final arremangándose los pantalones y chapoteando en el agua barrosa, con los zapatos en la mano.
Doménico hizo aquí una gran carrera. Exportaba cueros, tejidos y lana, cerraba negocios con ciudades del Alto Perú, Chile, la propia Córdoba, Cádiz y puertos de Inglaterra y Brasil. Belgrano padre participó también del tráfico de esclavos africanos.
A los 35 años se casó con una distinguida niña santiagueña: María Josefa González y Casero, de sólo quince años. Era la edad casadera de las mujeres de aquel tiempo. Aquella muchachita tuvo quince hijos, de los cuales sobrevivieron doce. Uno fue Manuel Belgrano, que murió soltero, aunque dejó descendencia. Una hermana de Manuel, llamada María Josefa como su madre, se casó con el sevillano José María Calderón de la Barca, y tuvieron diez.
Manuel José Joaquín del Corazón de Jesús Belgrano nació el 3 de junio de 1770, mientras su padre proseguía próspera gestión, bajo la protección del Virrey Pedro de Cevallos.
Los ex alumnos solemos decir, para florearnos, que Belgrano fue al Nacional Buenos Aires pero no es cierto: cursó una especie de secundario en el Real Colegio de San Carlos (predecesor del CNBA) que era una institución fundada por el Virrey Vértiz en 1783, sobre la base del Colegio de San Ignacio, que habían conducido los jesuitas, hasta su expulsión en 1767. Se regía por los planes de estudios ya vigentes en el Colegio de Montserrat de Córdoba.
Requisitos para ser admitido en el San Carlos: "Ser de primera clase, hijo legítimo, saber leer y escribir. Los padres debían ser cristianos viejos, limpios de toda mancha de sangre de judíos, moros, indios o penitenciados por el Santo Oficio de la Inquisición". Reglamentos del mismo tipo imperaban en España para cursar estudios, civiles o militares. Belgrano entró a los 14 años, en 1784. Una especie de sotana.
También decimos que Belgrano se recibió de abogado en Salamanca, pero no es exacto. Viajó allá con su hermano Francisco José María, eso sí. Pero según Miguel Angel de Marco en su notable biografía "Belgrano. Artífice de la Nación- Soldado de la Libertad", Belgrano presentó ante la Universidad de Valladolid un papel fraguado, atestiguando (con fecha 21 de junio de 1788) que Manuel estaba matriculado desde 1782, habiendo cursado, en doble turno, dos años de Filosofía y cuatro de Instituciones Civiles en la Universidad de Oviedo. Según De Marco, la falsificación de estudios era cosa común. El papel no mencionaba ningún paso por Salamanca.
Lo que sí obtuvo Belgrano fue un certificado de bachiller en Leyes. Por aquel entonces, su padre Doménico había sido encarcelado, a causa de un negocio turbio en el Río de la Plata. Manuel, por su parte, solicitaba dispensa papal para leer libros prohibidos de la época: Malebranche, Adam Smith, Condillac.
Llegaron los años difíciles. Manuel vivía, con su hermano también estudiante, de a ratos en casa de su hermana y su cuñado Calderón de la Barca(no el famoso escritor español), en Madrid. En aquellos tiempos de soltería, Manuel contrajo la sífilis. Esta enfermedad lo condenaría a muerte antes de los 50 años.
El litigio de su padre absorbió las energías de Manuel. El expediente (explica a su madre en carta del 11 de agosto de 1790) "formaba un verdadero promontorio que iba y venía por las oficinas". Doña María Josefa González, a todo esto, se hacía cargo de sostener a la familia.
Belgrano confiesa: "Mi aplicación no la contraje tanto a la carrera que había ido a emprender, como al estudio de los idiomas vivos, de la economía política y el derecho público" (Autobiografía). Su madre quería verlo doctor en Leyes. Pero Manuel le respondió en una carta concluyente: "Renuncio a graduarme de doctor. Lo contemplo como una cosa inútil y un gasto superfluo. Además, para litigar, me basta el grado que tengo, y la práctica que llevo adquirida". En carta a su padre, afirma en diciembre de 1790 que lo de doctor es "una patarata". (¿Un mamarracho?)
Finalmente, la Real Cancillería de Valladolid lo habilitó como abogado. Volvió a Buenos Aires, donde se encontraría con su primo Juan José, hijo del pariente de su padre, Angelo Castelli. Hablaba perfectamente italiano.
Según ficha de la Universidad de Valladolid, en 1789, era un "natural de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, de 19 años de edad, poco más o menos pelo rojo y ojos castaños". Se distinguía por su porte extranjero, de maneras refinadas, que le permitían frecuentar los mejores salones.
Hijo de padres ricos, su juventud fue revoltosa y siguió las ideas de su generación. "Se apoderaron de mí las ideas de libertad, igualdad, seguridad, propiedad, y sólo veía tiranos que impedían al hombre disfrutar de sus derechos". Un liberal revolucionario.
En marzo de 1794, así lo describe Bartolomé Mitre: "Joven, rico y de buena presencia, todas las puertas se le abrían. El prestigio de un viaje al Viejo Mundo, su instrucción variada, sus conocimientos de música, su título de abogado, sus maneras afables y cultas, le dieron un lugar distinguido en la sociedad. Se relacionó con los jóvenes más inteligentes de la época. Especialmente con Castelli, con quien desarrolló estudios económicos".
En los años subsiguientes, Belgrano será funcionario de la Corona Española (en el Consulado, donde llegó a ser secretario) y llorará de impotencia al producirse las Invasión Inglesa de 1806. Sus quince años en el Consulado le permitieron trazar un perfil estadístico y económico del Virreinto. Improvisado como militar, mantuvo un diálogo sutil con el general San Martín, a quien Belgrano sugería suavemente que respetara las formas de la religión católica y las creencias del pueblo, muy especialmente la devoción por la Virgen.
Belgrano, un católico profundo, participó del movimiento de mayo y fue moderado, al principio partidario de la Infanta Carlota de Borbón. Uno de sus momentos más dramáticos se produce cuando llegan a Buenos Aires las noticias de una conspiración tramada en Córdoba por algunas personalidades de orientación monárquica. Las encabeza, nada menos, Santiago Liniers, el ex virrey, que se encontraba teóricamente retirado y atendiendo un campo de su propiedad, junto al gobernador Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha y el obispo Rodrigo Antonio de Orellana, más otros vecinos destacados. Se proponían resistir a la revolución, con ayuda de unos mil milicianos, a los que habían convocado junto a distintos jefes militares y políticos: el coronel Santiago Allende, el teniente de gobernador Victorino Rodríguez y el secretario Joaquín Moreno, entre otros.
Es que el "cabildazo" de Buenos Aires no gustaba en ciudades como Córdoba, Montevideo, Asunción del Paraguay… ¡Y ni hablar de la rica y monárquica Lima, la ciudad del oro, los marqueses y la Inquisición!
La Primera Junta, con la firma de todos sus miembros, excepto Alberti por su condición de sacerdote, resuelve que todos los contrarrevolucionarios sean "arcabuceados". Saavedra, como Belgrano y Castelli, había compartido con Liniers la Reconquista de Buenos Aires. Todos ellos le tenían gran aprecio.
La ejecución de Liniers y los suyos, para colmo, fue tortuosa. Al recibir la orden, el 10 de agosto, el coronel Antonio Ortiz de Ocampo se negó a cumplirla. Amagó enviar los prisioneros a Buenos Aires, para que Moreno se hiciera cargo. Este recibió la noticia y, furioso, repitió la orden de "arcabucearlos". El 26 de agosto, cuando asistían a la misa que celebraba Monseñor Orellana (otro conjurado) en la capilla de Cruz Alta, fueron prendidos y trasladados a Chañar de los Loros. Allí, el miembro de la Junta Juan José Castelli les leyó la sentencia.
Moreno había escrito a Castelli: "Espero que no incurrirá en la misma debilidad que nuestro general; si todavía no cumpliese la determinación, irá Larrea, y por último iré yo mismo si fuese necesario". Al parecer, hubo que convocar a desertores irlandeses, de los muchos que se habían alistado en 1806-1807, y que siendo gringos no trepidaban ante el prestigio de Liniers. Colofón: todos fusilados, salvo el obispo, quien fue remitido preso a Luján. Agregan los testigos que el tiro de gracia -triste privilegio- lo efectuó el coronel Domingo French.
Una linda estampa de Belgrano: "El general era de regular estatura, pelo rubio, cara y nariz fina, color muy blanco, algo rosado, sin barba. Tenía una fístula bajo un ojo, que no lo desfiguraba, pues era casi imperceptible. Su cara era más bien de alemán que de porteño. No se lo podía acompañar por la calle, porque su andar era casi corriendo. No dormía más que tres o cuatro horas. A medianoche montaba a caballo y salía de ronda, a observar su ejército, acompañado sólo de un ordenanza. Era tal la abnegación con que este hombre extraordinario se entregó a la libertad de su patria, que no tenía un momento de reposo. Nunca buscaba su comodidad; con el mismo placer se acostaba en el suelo o en una mullida cama". (José Celedonio Balbín, "Documentos del Archivo de Belgrano").
Evidentemente, el alma de Manuel había cambiado vertiginosamente. En su juventud, aquel chico que lo tenía todo fue idealista, desordenado, soñador. En la madurez, un fanático del orden y la seriedad.
Murió en el año del caos, el 20 de junio de 1820 y al entrar en agonía pagó sus honorarios al médico inglés Joseph Redhead, con un reloj de oro de su propiedad. Otro médico, también británico, el Dr. John Sullivan, ayudó a amortajar el cuerpo, que fue enterrado en el atrio de la Iglesia de Santo Domingo.
El creador de la bandera y miembro de la Primera Junta dejó dos hijos, siendo soltero: Mónica Belgrano y don Pedro Rosas y Belgrano, hijo adoptivo de Juan Manuel de Rosas, que lo anotó como propio. Tenía 50 años y era muy pobre.
Fuente:http://www.msn.com/es-ar/noticias/nacional/la-asombrosa-vida-del-joven-belgrano/ar-BBCX68v?li=AAggPN3&ocid=mailsignout/www.youtube.com/Google Images/https://www.musica.com/letras.asp?letra=1273757
20 de JUNIO: DÍA DE LA BANDERA
Aurora (canción a la bandera argentina)
Published on Mar 31, 2010
El aria "Alta en el cielo" ó "Canción/Oración a la Bandera", perteneciente a la ópera Aurora del compositor y director argentino Héctor Panizza, es utilizada en Argentina como canción de saludo a la bandera.
La ópera Aurora fue un encargo del gobierno argentino para la primera temporada del Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires.
Originalmente en italiano y con libreto de Luigi Illica, es considerada la primera ópera nacional argentina; estrenada el 5 de septiembre de 1908.
En 1943 fue traducida al español por Héctor Quesada y Angel Pettita y reestrenada en castellano en 1945. Posteriormente un decreto nacional declaró el aria como saludo a la bandera.
La traducción efectuada al texto original en italiano resultó sumamente creativa, consignando términos que no existen en el castellano y referencias a elementos desconocidos en la Argentina generando de esta manera errores de interpretación.
El -aguila guerrera- es una metáfora con la cual se compara a un águila de color azul y blanco con la bandera nacional.
El escritor Juan Sasturain escribe sobre los neologismos: En el original italiano, no hay -aurora irradial- (que tampoco existe en el castellano) sino -aureola irradiale-; es decir, la aureola de rayos del amanecer que ilumina al águila.
El verso -il rostro dor punta de freccia appare- se tradujo como punta de flecha el áureo rostro imita; cuando en italiano -rostro- significa en realidad pico: es decir que el pico del águila iluminado, parece una punta de flecha (el extremo metálico del asta).
El verso -porpora il teso collo e forma stello- fue traducido como -Y forma estela al purpurado cuello-, esto quiere decir que los rayos del Sol enrojecen el tenso, alargado cuello del águila y forman el tallo -stelo- (el asta de la bandera); por lo tanto stelo no significa estela, sino tallo.
Letra:
Alta en el cielo un águila guerrera,
audaz se eleva en vuelo triunfal,
azul un ala del color del cielo,
azul un ala del color del mar.
Así en la alta aurora irradial,
punta de flecha el áureo rostro imita
y forma estela al purpurado cuello,
el ala es paño, el águila es bandera.
Es la bandera de la patria mía
del sol nacida que me ha dado Dios;
es la bandera de la patria mia,
del sol nacida, que me ha dado Dios;
es la bandera de la patria mía,
del sol nacida que me ha dado Dios
La asombrosa vida del joven Belgrano
© Proporcionado por THX Medios S.A.
El primer "Tano" de estas tierras fue Domenico Belgrano Peri (aquí lo castellanizaron Pérez) nacido en Oneglia, en el golfo de Génova, que perteneció en sus tiempos al reino de Cerdeña. Domenico emigró a los 19 años, hacia 1749, y se radicó en Cádiz, ciudad española muy vinculada a las Indias (es decir, América española) que tenía 50 mil habitantes a mediados del siglo XVIII. Abundaban entre ellos los comerciantes italianos y franceses. En los jardines gaditanos se veían árboles de América como el ombú, el jacarandá, el drago, el ficus.
El señor Belgrano Peri se embarcó en 1751, hacia Buenos Aires (a bordo del navío El Poloni) junto a su primo don Angelo Castelli para probar suerte aquí. Los dos tendrían hijos varones que pasarían a la historia como revolucionarios argentinos.
Belgrano salió de aquella Cádiz alegre y próspera, pero desembarcó en una Buenos Aires pobretona. La ciudad, la famosa ciudad-puerto de la historia… ¡no tenía puerto!. Los barcos anclaban en pleno Río de la Plata. De la nave se pasaba a unos botes de remo, y luego los pasajeros debían montar a caballo, para llegar hasta la orilla empapados, o amontonarse en unas carretas de ruedas altas. A veces, recorrían el tramo final arremangándose los pantalones y chapoteando en el agua barrosa, con los zapatos en la mano.
Doménico hizo aquí una gran carrera. Exportaba cueros, tejidos y lana, cerraba negocios con ciudades del Alto Perú, Chile, la propia Córdoba, Cádiz y puertos de Inglaterra y Brasil. Belgrano padre participó también del tráfico de esclavos africanos.
A los 35 años se casó con una distinguida niña santiagueña: María Josefa González y Casero, de sólo quince años. Era la edad casadera de las mujeres de aquel tiempo. Aquella muchachita tuvo quince hijos, de los cuales sobrevivieron doce. Uno fue Manuel Belgrano, que murió soltero, aunque dejó descendencia. Una hermana de Manuel, llamada María Josefa como su madre, se casó con el sevillano José María Calderón de la Barca, y tuvieron diez.
Manuel José Joaquín del Corazón de Jesús Belgrano nació el 3 de junio de 1770, mientras su padre proseguía próspera gestión, bajo la protección del Virrey Pedro de Cevallos.
Los ex alumnos solemos decir, para florearnos, que Belgrano fue al Nacional Buenos Aires pero no es cierto: cursó una especie de secundario en el Real Colegio de San Carlos (predecesor del CNBA) que era una institución fundada por el Virrey Vértiz en 1783, sobre la base del Colegio de San Ignacio, que habían conducido los jesuitas, hasta su expulsión en 1767. Se regía por los planes de estudios ya vigentes en el Colegio de Montserrat de Córdoba.
Requisitos para ser admitido en el San Carlos: "Ser de primera clase, hijo legítimo, saber leer y escribir. Los padres debían ser cristianos viejos, limpios de toda mancha de sangre de judíos, moros, indios o penitenciados por el Santo Oficio de la Inquisición". Reglamentos del mismo tipo imperaban en España para cursar estudios, civiles o militares. Belgrano entró a los 14 años, en 1784. Una especie de sotana.
También decimos que Belgrano se recibió de abogado en Salamanca, pero no es exacto. Viajó allá con su hermano Francisco José María, eso sí. Pero según Miguel Angel de Marco en su notable biografía "Belgrano. Artífice de la Nación- Soldado de la Libertad", Belgrano presentó ante la Universidad de Valladolid un papel fraguado, atestiguando (con fecha 21 de junio de 1788) que Manuel estaba matriculado desde 1782, habiendo cursado, en doble turno, dos años de Filosofía y cuatro de Instituciones Civiles en la Universidad de Oviedo. Según De Marco, la falsificación de estudios era cosa común. El papel no mencionaba ningún paso por Salamanca.
Lo que sí obtuvo Belgrano fue un certificado de bachiller en Leyes. Por aquel entonces, su padre Doménico había sido encarcelado, a causa de un negocio turbio en el Río de la Plata. Manuel, por su parte, solicitaba dispensa papal para leer libros prohibidos de la época: Malebranche, Adam Smith, Condillac.
Llegaron los años difíciles. Manuel vivía, con su hermano también estudiante, de a ratos en casa de su hermana y su cuñado Calderón de la Barca(no el famoso escritor español), en Madrid. En aquellos tiempos de soltería, Manuel contrajo la sífilis. Esta enfermedad lo condenaría a muerte antes de los 50 años.
El litigio de su padre absorbió las energías de Manuel. El expediente (explica a su madre en carta del 11 de agosto de 1790) "formaba un verdadero promontorio que iba y venía por las oficinas". Doña María Josefa González, a todo esto, se hacía cargo de sostener a la familia.
Belgrano confiesa: "Mi aplicación no la contraje tanto a la carrera que había ido a emprender, como al estudio de los idiomas vivos, de la economía política y el derecho público" (Autobiografía). Su madre quería verlo doctor en Leyes. Pero Manuel le respondió en una carta concluyente: "Renuncio a graduarme de doctor. Lo contemplo como una cosa inútil y un gasto superfluo. Además, para litigar, me basta el grado que tengo, y la práctica que llevo adquirida". En carta a su padre, afirma en diciembre de 1790 que lo de doctor es "una patarata". (¿Un mamarracho?)
Finalmente, la Real Cancillería de Valladolid lo habilitó como abogado. Volvió a Buenos Aires, donde se encontraría con su primo Juan José, hijo del pariente de su padre, Angelo Castelli. Hablaba perfectamente italiano.
Según ficha de la Universidad de Valladolid, en 1789, era un "natural de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, de 19 años de edad, poco más o menos pelo rojo y ojos castaños". Se distinguía por su porte extranjero, de maneras refinadas, que le permitían frecuentar los mejores salones.
Hijo de padres ricos, su juventud fue revoltosa y siguió las ideas de su generación. "Se apoderaron de mí las ideas de libertad, igualdad, seguridad, propiedad, y sólo veía tiranos que impedían al hombre disfrutar de sus derechos". Un liberal revolucionario.
En marzo de 1794, así lo describe Bartolomé Mitre: "Joven, rico y de buena presencia, todas las puertas se le abrían. El prestigio de un viaje al Viejo Mundo, su instrucción variada, sus conocimientos de música, su título de abogado, sus maneras afables y cultas, le dieron un lugar distinguido en la sociedad. Se relacionó con los jóvenes más inteligentes de la época. Especialmente con Castelli, con quien desarrolló estudios económicos".
En los años subsiguientes, Belgrano será funcionario de la Corona Española (en el Consulado, donde llegó a ser secretario) y llorará de impotencia al producirse las Invasión Inglesa de 1806. Sus quince años en el Consulado le permitieron trazar un perfil estadístico y económico del Virreinto. Improvisado como militar, mantuvo un diálogo sutil con el general San Martín, a quien Belgrano sugería suavemente que respetara las formas de la religión católica y las creencias del pueblo, muy especialmente la devoción por la Virgen.
Belgrano, un católico profundo, participó del movimiento de mayo y fue moderado, al principio partidario de la Infanta Carlota de Borbón. Uno de sus momentos más dramáticos se produce cuando llegan a Buenos Aires las noticias de una conspiración tramada en Córdoba por algunas personalidades de orientación monárquica. Las encabeza, nada menos, Santiago Liniers, el ex virrey, que se encontraba teóricamente retirado y atendiendo un campo de su propiedad, junto al gobernador Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha y el obispo Rodrigo Antonio de Orellana, más otros vecinos destacados. Se proponían resistir a la revolución, con ayuda de unos mil milicianos, a los que habían convocado junto a distintos jefes militares y políticos: el coronel Santiago Allende, el teniente de gobernador Victorino Rodríguez y el secretario Joaquín Moreno, entre otros.
Es que el "cabildazo" de Buenos Aires no gustaba en ciudades como Córdoba, Montevideo, Asunción del Paraguay… ¡Y ni hablar de la rica y monárquica Lima, la ciudad del oro, los marqueses y la Inquisición!
La Primera Junta, con la firma de todos sus miembros, excepto Alberti por su condición de sacerdote, resuelve que todos los contrarrevolucionarios sean "arcabuceados". Saavedra, como Belgrano y Castelli, había compartido con Liniers la Reconquista de Buenos Aires. Todos ellos le tenían gran aprecio.
La ejecución de Liniers y los suyos, para colmo, fue tortuosa. Al recibir la orden, el 10 de agosto, el coronel Antonio Ortiz de Ocampo se negó a cumplirla. Amagó enviar los prisioneros a Buenos Aires, para que Moreno se hiciera cargo. Este recibió la noticia y, furioso, repitió la orden de "arcabucearlos". El 26 de agosto, cuando asistían a la misa que celebraba Monseñor Orellana (otro conjurado) en la capilla de Cruz Alta, fueron prendidos y trasladados a Chañar de los Loros. Allí, el miembro de la Junta Juan José Castelli les leyó la sentencia.
Moreno había escrito a Castelli: "Espero que no incurrirá en la misma debilidad que nuestro general; si todavía no cumpliese la determinación, irá Larrea, y por último iré yo mismo si fuese necesario". Al parecer, hubo que convocar a desertores irlandeses, de los muchos que se habían alistado en 1806-1807, y que siendo gringos no trepidaban ante el prestigio de Liniers. Colofón: todos fusilados, salvo el obispo, quien fue remitido preso a Luján. Agregan los testigos que el tiro de gracia -triste privilegio- lo efectuó el coronel Domingo French.
Una linda estampa de Belgrano: "El general era de regular estatura, pelo rubio, cara y nariz fina, color muy blanco, algo rosado, sin barba. Tenía una fístula bajo un ojo, que no lo desfiguraba, pues era casi imperceptible. Su cara era más bien de alemán que de porteño. No se lo podía acompañar por la calle, porque su andar era casi corriendo. No dormía más que tres o cuatro horas. A medianoche montaba a caballo y salía de ronda, a observar su ejército, acompañado sólo de un ordenanza. Era tal la abnegación con que este hombre extraordinario se entregó a la libertad de su patria, que no tenía un momento de reposo. Nunca buscaba su comodidad; con el mismo placer se acostaba en el suelo o en una mullida cama". (José Celedonio Balbín, "Documentos del Archivo de Belgrano").
Evidentemente, el alma de Manuel había cambiado vertiginosamente. En su juventud, aquel chico que lo tenía todo fue idealista, desordenado, soñador. En la madurez, un fanático del orden y la seriedad.
Murió en el año del caos, el 20 de junio de 1820 y al entrar en agonía pagó sus honorarios al médico inglés Joseph Redhead, con un reloj de oro de su propiedad. Otro médico, también británico, el Dr. John Sullivan, ayudó a amortajar el cuerpo, que fue enterrado en el atrio de la Iglesia de Santo Domingo.
El creador de la bandera y miembro de la Primera Junta dejó dos hijos, siendo soltero: Mónica Belgrano y don Pedro Rosas y Belgrano, hijo adoptivo de Juan Manuel de Rosas, que lo anotó como propio. Tenía 50 años y era muy pobre.
Fuente:http://www.msn.com/es-ar/noticias/nacional/la-asombrosa-vida-del-joven-belgrano/ar-BBCX68v?li=AAggPN3&ocid=mailsignout/www.youtube.com/Google Images/https://www.musica.com/letras.asp?letra=1273757
Sunday, June 18, 2017
¡FELIZ DÍA DEL PADRE!
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
¡FELIZ DÍA DEL PADRE!
(*)Mi padre y yo en la celebración de su cumpleaños número 60.
Hoy, en su día y ya no conmigo físicamente, un gran recuerdo y
una oración en su memoria.
Dedicación
Ingenio
Alegría
Docilidad
Entusiasmo
Libertad
Paciencia
Atención
Devoción
Risas
Equilibrio
Fuente: Foto y palabras de Clara Moras.
¡FELIZ DÍA DEL PADRE!
(*)Mi padre y yo en la celebración de su cumpleaños número 60.
Hoy, en su día y ya no conmigo físicamente, un gran recuerdo y
una oración en su memoria.
Dedicación
Ingenio
Alegría
Docilidad
Entusiasmo
Libertad
Paciencia
Atención
Devoción
Risas
Equilibrio
Fuente: Foto y palabras de Clara Moras.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
MUS/GINT-Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman & other videos
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman [1967]
Uploaded on Jan 19, 2011
Lyrics:
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"
Looking out on the morning rain
I used to feel so uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But you're the key to my peace of mind
'Cause you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
When my soul was in the lost and found
You came along, to claim it
I didn't know just what was wrong with me
'Til your kiss helped me name it
Now I'm no longer doubtful of what I'm living for
And if I make you happy I don't need to do more
'Cause you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
Oh, baby, what you done to me?
You make me feel so good inside
And I just wanna be close to you
You make me feel so alive
You make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
You make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
Willie Nelson & Carole King - "Will You Still Love Me tomorrow"
Published on Nov 17, 2012
Lyrics:
"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"
Tonight you're mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment's pleasure
Can I believe the magic of your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrow
Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I'm the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun
I'd like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Mariah Carey - I'll Be There
Published on Sep 27, 2010
Lyrics:
"I'll Be There"
You and I must make a pact
We must bring salvation back
Where there is love
I'll be there
I'll reach out my hand to you
I'll have faith in all you do
Just call my name
And I'll be there
[Chorus:]
I'll be there to comfort you
I'll build my world of dreams around you
I'm so glad I found you
I'll be there with a love so strong
I'll be your strength
You know I'll keep holding on
Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter
Togetherness well it's all I'm after
Just call my name
And I'll be there
I'll be there to protect you
With an unselfish love that respects you
Just call my name
And I'll be there
[Chorus]
If you should ever find someone new
I know she better be good to you
'Cause if she doesn't
Then I'll be there
Don't you know baby
I'll be there
I'll be there
Just call my name
And I'll be there
I'll be there baby
You know I'll be there
Just call my name
And I'll be there
Just look over your shoulder
Just call my name
And I'll be there
Lyrics:
"Without You"
No I can't forget this evening
Or your face as you were leaving
But I guess that's just the way
The story goes
You always smile but in your eyes
Your sorrow shows
Yes it shows
No I can't forget tomorrow
When I think of all my sorrow
When I had you there
But then I let you go
And now it's only fair
That I should let you know
What you should know
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't live
I can't give anymore
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't give
I can't give anymore
Well I can't forget this evening
Or your face as you were leaving
But I guess that's just the way
The story goes
You always smile but in your eyes
Your sorrow shows
Yes it shows
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't live
I can't give anymore
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't give
I can't give anymore
Elvis Presley - Always On My Mind
Uploaded on Dec 23, 2008
Lyrics:
"Always On My Mind"
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Maybe I didn't hold you
All those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you
I'm so happy that you're mine
If I make you feel second best
Girl, I'm so sorry I was blind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasn't died
Give me, give me one more chance
To keep you satisfied, satisfied
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Maybe I didn't hold you
All those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you
I'm so happy that you're mine
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
[fade]
George Michael - One More Try
Uploaded on Nov 23, 2009
George Michael's official music video for 'One More Try'.
Lyrics:
"One More Try"
I've had enough of danger
And people on the streets
I'm looking out for angels
Just trying to find some peace
Now I think it's time
That you let me know
So if you love me
Say you love me
But if you don't
Just let me go...
'Cause teacher
There are things that I don't want to learn
And the last one I had
Made me cry
So I don't want to learn to
Hold you, touch you
Think that you're mine
Because it ain't no joy
For an uptown boy
Whose teacher has told him goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
When you were just a stranger
And I was at your feet
I didn't feel the danger
Now I feel the heat
That look in your eyes
Telling me "No"
So you think that you love me
Know that you need me
I wrote the song, I know it's wrong
Just let me go...
And teacher
There are things that I don't want to learn
Oh the last one I had
Made me cry
So I don't want to learn to
Hold you, touch you
Think that you're mine
Because it ain't no joy
For an uptown boy
Whose teacher has told him goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
So when you say that you need me
That you'll never leave me
I know you're wrong, you're not that strong
Let me go
And teacher
There are things that I still have to learn
But the one thing I have is my pride
Oh, so I don't want to learn to
Hold you, touch you
Think that you're mine
Because there ain't no joy
For an uptown boy
Who just isn't willing to try
I'm so cold inside
Maybe just one more try
INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
Uploaded on Jan 23, 2009
INXS
Lyrics:
"Never Tear Us Apart"
Don't ask me
What you know is true
Don't have to tell you
I love your precious heart
I
I was standing
You were there
Two worlds collided
And they could never tear us apart
We could live
For a thousand years
But if I hurt you
I'd make wine from your tears
I told you
That we could fly
'Cause we all have wings
But some of us don't know why
I
I was standing
You were there
Two worlds collided
And they could never ever tear us apart
Phil Collins Against All Odds(Take A Look At Me Now)
Uploaded on Jun 11, 2006
Lyrics:
"Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)"
How can I just let you walk away, just let you leave without a trace
When I stand here taking every breath with you, ooh
You're the only one who really knew me at all
How can you just walk away from me,
When all I can do is watch you leave
Cause we've shared the laughter and the pain and even shared the tears
You're the only one who really knew me at all
So take a look at me now, oh there's just an empty space
And there's nothing left here to remind me,
Just the memory of your face
Ooh take a look at me now, well there's just an empty space
And you coming back to me is against the odds and that's what I've got to face
I wish I could just make you turn around,
Turn around and see me cry
There's so much I need to say to you,
So many reasons why
You're the only one who really knew me at all
So take a look at me now, well there's just an empty space
And there's nothing left here to remind me, just the memory of your face
Now take a look at me now, cause there's just an empty space
But to wait for you, is all I can do and that's what I've got to face
Take a good look at me now, cause I'll still be standing here
And you coming back to me is against all odds
It's the chance I've gotta take
Take a look at me now
Source:www.youtube.com/http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics
Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman [1967]
Uploaded on Jan 19, 2011
Lyrics:
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"
Looking out on the morning rain
I used to feel so uninspired
And when I knew I had to face another day
Lord, it made me feel so tired
Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But you're the key to my peace of mind
'Cause you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
When my soul was in the lost and found
You came along, to claim it
I didn't know just what was wrong with me
'Til your kiss helped me name it
Now I'm no longer doubtful of what I'm living for
And if I make you happy I don't need to do more
'Cause you make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
Oh, baby, what you done to me?
You make me feel so good inside
And I just wanna be close to you
You make me feel so alive
You make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
You make me feel
You make me feel
You make me feel like a natural woman
Willie Nelson & Carole King - "Will You Still Love Me tomorrow"
Published on Nov 17, 2012
Lyrics:
"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"
Tonight you're mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment's pleasure
Can I believe the magic of your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrow
Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I'm the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun
I'd like to know that your love
Is love I can be sure of
So tell me now and I won't ask again
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Will you still love me tomorrow
Mariah Carey - I'll Be There
Published on Sep 27, 2010
Lyrics:
"I'll Be There"
You and I must make a pact
We must bring salvation back
Where there is love
I'll be there
I'll reach out my hand to you
I'll have faith in all you do
Just call my name
And I'll be there
[Chorus:]
I'll be there to comfort you
I'll build my world of dreams around you
I'm so glad I found you
I'll be there with a love so strong
I'll be your strength
You know I'll keep holding on
Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter
Togetherness well it's all I'm after
Just call my name
And I'll be there
I'll be there to protect you
With an unselfish love that respects you
Just call my name
And I'll be there
[Chorus]
If you should ever find someone new
I know she better be good to you
'Cause if she doesn't
Then I'll be there
Don't you know baby
I'll be there
I'll be there
Just call my name
And I'll be there
I'll be there baby
You know I'll be there
Just call my name
And I'll be there
Just look over your shoulder
Just call my name
And I'll be there
Lyrics:
"Without You"
No I can't forget this evening
Or your face as you were leaving
But I guess that's just the way
The story goes
You always smile but in your eyes
Your sorrow shows
Yes it shows
No I can't forget tomorrow
When I think of all my sorrow
When I had you there
But then I let you go
And now it's only fair
That I should let you know
What you should know
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't live
I can't give anymore
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't give
I can't give anymore
Well I can't forget this evening
Or your face as you were leaving
But I guess that's just the way
The story goes
You always smile but in your eyes
Your sorrow shows
Yes it shows
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't live
I can't give anymore
I can't live
If living is without you
I can't give
I can't give anymore
Elvis Presley - Always On My Mind
Uploaded on Dec 23, 2008
Lyrics:
"Always On My Mind"
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Maybe I didn't hold you
All those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you
I'm so happy that you're mine
If I make you feel second best
Girl, I'm so sorry I was blind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasn't died
Give me, give me one more chance
To keep you satisfied, satisfied
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Maybe I didn't hold you
All those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you
I'm so happy that you're mine
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
[fade]
George Michael - One More Try
Uploaded on Nov 23, 2009
George Michael's official music video for 'One More Try'.
Lyrics:
"One More Try"
I've had enough of danger
And people on the streets
I'm looking out for angels
Just trying to find some peace
Now I think it's time
That you let me know
So if you love me
Say you love me
But if you don't
Just let me go...
'Cause teacher
There are things that I don't want to learn
And the last one I had
Made me cry
So I don't want to learn to
Hold you, touch you
Think that you're mine
Because it ain't no joy
For an uptown boy
Whose teacher has told him goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
When you were just a stranger
And I was at your feet
I didn't feel the danger
Now I feel the heat
That look in your eyes
Telling me "No"
So you think that you love me
Know that you need me
I wrote the song, I know it's wrong
Just let me go...
And teacher
There are things that I don't want to learn
Oh the last one I had
Made me cry
So I don't want to learn to
Hold you, touch you
Think that you're mine
Because it ain't no joy
For an uptown boy
Whose teacher has told him goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
So when you say that you need me
That you'll never leave me
I know you're wrong, you're not that strong
Let me go
And teacher
There are things that I still have to learn
But the one thing I have is my pride
Oh, so I don't want to learn to
Hold you, touch you
Think that you're mine
Because there ain't no joy
For an uptown boy
Who just isn't willing to try
I'm so cold inside
Maybe just one more try
INXS - Never Tear Us Apart
Uploaded on Jan 23, 2009
INXS
Lyrics:
"Never Tear Us Apart"
Don't ask me
What you know is true
Don't have to tell you
I love your precious heart
I
I was standing
You were there
Two worlds collided
And they could never tear us apart
We could live
For a thousand years
But if I hurt you
I'd make wine from your tears
I told you
That we could fly
'Cause we all have wings
But some of us don't know why
I
I was standing
You were there
Two worlds collided
And they could never ever tear us apart
Phil Collins Against All Odds(Take A Look At Me Now)
Uploaded on Jun 11, 2006
Lyrics:
"Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)"
How can I just let you walk away, just let you leave without a trace
When I stand here taking every breath with you, ooh
You're the only one who really knew me at all
How can you just walk away from me,
When all I can do is watch you leave
Cause we've shared the laughter and the pain and even shared the tears
You're the only one who really knew me at all
So take a look at me now, oh there's just an empty space
And there's nothing left here to remind me,
Just the memory of your face
Ooh take a look at me now, well there's just an empty space
And you coming back to me is against the odds and that's what I've got to face
I wish I could just make you turn around,
Turn around and see me cry
There's so much I need to say to you,
So many reasons why
You're the only one who really knew me at all
So take a look at me now, well there's just an empty space
And there's nothing left here to remind me, just the memory of your face
Now take a look at me now, cause there's just an empty space
But to wait for you, is all I can do and that's what I've got to face
Take a good look at me now, cause I'll still be standing here
And you coming back to me is against all odds
It's the chance I've gotta take
Take a look at me now
Source:www.youtube.com/http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics
Sunday, June 11, 2017
GINT-El deber de fidelidad
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
El deber de fidelidad
11 DE JUNIO DE 2017
Nadie duda de que la fidelidad, en tanto lealtad y cumplimiento estricto del compromiso contraído, es una virtud moral, un comportamiento deseable.
Durante siglos constituyó una obligación jurídicamente impuesta dentro del matrimonio, consistente en respetar la exclusividad del trato afectivo y sexual con la esposa o esposo. Tradicionalmente, la norma se imponía con mayor severidad respecto de la mujer para evitar que se confundiera la filiación paterna, a raíz del trato con un tercero. Modernamente se la entendió como siempre debió haber sido: el compromiso de dos que se aman, que se otorgan recíprocamente exclusividad sobre sus cuerpos, con miras a la formación de una familia en una unión duradera.
A lo largo de la historia, el castigo social tomó además la forma de lapidación, pedrea y otras violentas sanciones a la mujer adúltera. De considerar la infidelidad un acto ilícito violatorio del compromiso matrimonial por parte de cualquiera de los esposos, se llegó a la noción de culpa: la deslealtad matrimonial era un ilícito civil y moral que justificaba que la parte ofendida solicitara el divorcio por culpa de la parte incumplidora.
Las nuevas corrientes de pensamiento han eliminado la noción de culpa en las relaciones matrimoniales, a tal punto de que nuestro nuevo Código Civil y Comercial no exige ninguna violación de los deberes matrimoniales para habilitar una declaración de divorcio. Basta la sola voluntad de divorciarse, individualmente o de común acuerdo.
Sin embargo, entre los compromisos de los esposos, la nueva ley civil estableció lo que se denomina el deber moral de fidelidad. Otro artículo dispone que cuando el divorcio le produzca a una de las partes un desequilibrio manifiesto que signifique un empeoramiento de su situación, el afectado tendrá derecho a una compensación económica. El derecho reconoce desde siempre tanto la obligación de no dañar a otro como la de reparar el daño causado.
Así las cosas, se han producido algunas sentencias judiciales que, con carácter excepcional, no han dudado en reconocer a la víctima del adulterio o de la infidelidad del esposo o esposa, una indemnización económica cuando ese obrar haya sido malicioso o claramente nocivo para el otro cónyuge, socavando su proyecto de vida y generando un daño físico, psíquico o moral. Esto es, no cualquier infidelidad da lugar a la reparación, sino una especialmente grave y dañosa.
La frontera no está claramente delimitada. Por un lado, ha desaparecido el concepto de culpa y el divorcio no requiere causal alguna. Pero por el otro, la fidelidad es un deber moral cuyo incumplimiento puede dañar al otro generando la obligación de indemnizarlo económicamente. Asoma pues una noción de culpa diferente, no ya fundada en la violación del deber matrimonial, sino en la transgresión al principio de no dañar al otro. Queda la duda de si no hay aquí alguna contradicción en términos legales y si las dos fuentes del daño no se confunden en una sola. La infidelidad matrimonial es casi siempre fuente de algún tipo de daño, cualquiera que sea su grado.
Fuente:www.lanacion.com.ar
El deber de fidelidad
11 DE JUNIO DE 2017
Nadie duda de que la fidelidad, en tanto lealtad y cumplimiento estricto del compromiso contraído, es una virtud moral, un comportamiento deseable.
Durante siglos constituyó una obligación jurídicamente impuesta dentro del matrimonio, consistente en respetar la exclusividad del trato afectivo y sexual con la esposa o esposo. Tradicionalmente, la norma se imponía con mayor severidad respecto de la mujer para evitar que se confundiera la filiación paterna, a raíz del trato con un tercero. Modernamente se la entendió como siempre debió haber sido: el compromiso de dos que se aman, que se otorgan recíprocamente exclusividad sobre sus cuerpos, con miras a la formación de una familia en una unión duradera.
A lo largo de la historia, el castigo social tomó además la forma de lapidación, pedrea y otras violentas sanciones a la mujer adúltera. De considerar la infidelidad un acto ilícito violatorio del compromiso matrimonial por parte de cualquiera de los esposos, se llegó a la noción de culpa: la deslealtad matrimonial era un ilícito civil y moral que justificaba que la parte ofendida solicitara el divorcio por culpa de la parte incumplidora.
Las nuevas corrientes de pensamiento han eliminado la noción de culpa en las relaciones matrimoniales, a tal punto de que nuestro nuevo Código Civil y Comercial no exige ninguna violación de los deberes matrimoniales para habilitar una declaración de divorcio. Basta la sola voluntad de divorciarse, individualmente o de común acuerdo.
Sin embargo, entre los compromisos de los esposos, la nueva ley civil estableció lo que se denomina el deber moral de fidelidad. Otro artículo dispone que cuando el divorcio le produzca a una de las partes un desequilibrio manifiesto que signifique un empeoramiento de su situación, el afectado tendrá derecho a una compensación económica. El derecho reconoce desde siempre tanto la obligación de no dañar a otro como la de reparar el daño causado.
Así las cosas, se han producido algunas sentencias judiciales que, con carácter excepcional, no han dudado en reconocer a la víctima del adulterio o de la infidelidad del esposo o esposa, una indemnización económica cuando ese obrar haya sido malicioso o claramente nocivo para el otro cónyuge, socavando su proyecto de vida y generando un daño físico, psíquico o moral. Esto es, no cualquier infidelidad da lugar a la reparación, sino una especialmente grave y dañosa.
La frontera no está claramente delimitada. Por un lado, ha desaparecido el concepto de culpa y el divorcio no requiere causal alguna. Pero por el otro, la fidelidad es un deber moral cuyo incumplimiento puede dañar al otro generando la obligación de indemnizarlo económicamente. Asoma pues una noción de culpa diferente, no ya fundada en la violación del deber matrimonial, sino en la transgresión al principio de no dañar al otro. Queda la duda de si no hay aquí alguna contradicción en términos legales y si las dos fuentes del daño no se confunden en una sola. La infidelidad matrimonial es casi siempre fuente de algún tipo de daño, cualquiera que sea su grado.
Fuente:www.lanacion.com.ar
Saturday, June 10, 2017
EDUC/GINT/Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, spoke to the Harvard Class of 2017 for commencement .
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Mark Zuckerberg Harvard Commencement Speech 2017 FACEBOOK CEO'S FULL SPEECH
ABC News
Published on May 25, 2017
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, spoke to the Harvard Class of 2017 for commencement .
Transcript:
Harvard Commencement 2017
President Faust, Board of Overseers, faculty, alumni, friends, proud parents, members of the ad board, and graduates of the greatest university in the world,
I'm honored to be with you today because, let's face it, you accomplished something I never could. If I get through this speech, it'll be the first time I actually finish something at Harvard. Class of 2017, congratulations!
I'm an unlikely speaker, not just because I dropped out, but because we're technically in the same generation. We walked this yard less than a decade apart, studied the same ideas and slept through the same Ec10 lectures. We may have taken different paths to get here, especially if you came all the way from the Quad, but today I want to share what I've learned about our generation and the world we're building together.
But first, the last couple of days have brought back a lot of good memories.
How many of you remember exactly what you were doing when you got that email telling you that you got into Harvard? I was playing "Civilization" and I ran downstairs, got my dad, and for some reason, his reaction was to video me opening the email. That could have been a really sad video. I swear getting into Harvard is still the thing my parents are most proud of me for.
What about your first lecture at Harvard? Mine was Computer Science 121 with the incredible Harry Lewis. I was late so I threw on a T-shirt and didn't realize until afterwards it was inside out and backwards with my tag sticking out the front. I couldn't figure out why no one would talk to me — except one guy, KX Jin, he just went with it. We ended up doing our problem sets together, and now he runs a big part of Facebook. And that, Class of 2017, is why you should be nice to people.
But my best memory from Harvard was meeting Priscilla. I had just launched this prank website, Facemash, and the ad board wanted to "see me." Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out. My parents came to help me pack. My friends threw me a going away party. As luck would have it, Priscilla was at that party with her friend. We met in line for the bathroom in the Pfoho Belltower, and in what must be one of the all-time romantic lines, I said, "I'm going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly."
Actually, any of you graduating can use that line.
I didn't end up getting kicked out — I did that to myself. Priscilla and I started dating. And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn't. But without Facemash I wouldn't have met Priscilla, and she's the most important person in my life, so you could say it was the most important thing I built in my time here.
We've all started lifelong friendships here, and some of us even families. That's why I'm so grateful to this place. Thanks, Harvard.
Today I want to talk about purpose. But I'm not here to give you the standard commencement about finding your purpose. We're millennials. We'll try to do that instinctively. Instead, I'm here to tell you finding your purpose isn't enough. The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.
One of my favorite stories is when John F. Kennedy visited the NASA space center, he saw a janitor carrying a broom and he walked over and asked what he was doing. The janitor responded, "Mr. President, I'm helping put a man on the moon."
Purpose is that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we are needed, that we have something better ahead to work for. Purpose is what creates true happiness.
You're graduating at a time when this is especially important. When our parents graduated, purpose reliably came from your job, your church, your community. But today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs. Membership in communities is declining. Many people feel disconnected and depressed and are trying to fill a void.
As I've traveled around, I've sat with children in juvenile detention and opioid addicts, who told me their lives could have turned out differently if they just had something to do, an after-school program or somewhere to go. I've met factory workers who know their old jobs aren't coming back and are trying to find their place.
To keep our society moving forward, we have a generational challenge — to not only create new jobs, but create a renewed sense of purpose.
I remember the night I launched Facebook from my little dorm in Kirkland House. I went to Noch's with my friend KX. I remember telling him I was excited to connect the Harvard community, but one day someone would connect the whole world.
The thing is, it never even occurred to me that someone might be us. We were just college kids. We didn't know anything about that. There were all these big technology companies with resources. I just assumed one of them would do it. But this idea was so clear to us — that all people want to connect. So we just kept moving forward, day by day.
I know a lot of you will have your own stories just like this. A change in the world that seems so clear you're sure someone else will do it. But they won't. You will.
But it's not enough to have purpose yourself. You have to create a sense of purpose for others.
I found that out the hard way. You see, my hope was never to build a company, but to make an impact. And as all these people started joining us, I just assumed that's what they cared about too, so I never explained what I hoped we'd build.
A couple years in, some big companies wanted to buy us. I didn't want to sell. I wanted to see if we could connect more people. We were building the first News Feed, and I thought if we could just launch this, it could change how we learn about the world.
Nearly everyone else wanted to sell. Without a sense of higher purpose, this was the startup dream come true. It tore our company apart. After one tense argument, an adviser told me if I didn't agree to sell, I would regret the decision for the rest of my life. Relationships were so frayed that within a year or so every single person on the management team was gone.
That was my hardest time leading Facebook. I believed in what we were doing, but I felt alone. And worse, it was my fault. I wondered if I was just wrong, an imposter, a 22-year-old kid who had no idea how the world worked.
Now, years later, I understand that is how things work with no sense of higher purpose. It's up to us to create it so we can all keep moving forward together.
Today I want to talk about three ways to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose: by taking on big meaningful projects together, by redefining equality so everyone has the freedom to pursue purpose, and by building community across the world.
First, let's take on big meaningful projects.
Our generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks. But we have the potential to do so much more together.
Every generation has its defining works. More than 300,000 people worked to put a man on the moon — including that janitor. Millions of volunteers immunized children around the world against polio. Millions of more people built the Hoover Dam and other great projects.
These projects didn't just provide purpose for the people doing those jobs — they gave our whole country a sense of pride that we could do great things.
Now it's our turn to do great things. I know, you're probably thinking: I don't know how to build a dam or get a million people involved in anything.
But let me tell you a secret: no one does when they begin. Ideas don't come out fully formed. They only become clear as you work on them. You just have to get started.
If I had to understand everything about connecting people before I began, I never would have started Facebook.
Movies and pop culture get this all wrong. The idea of a single eureka moment is a dangerous lie. It makes us feel inadequate since we haven't had ours. It prevents people with seeds of good ideas from getting started.
Oh, you know what else movies get wrong about innovation? No one writes math formulas on glass. That's not a thing.
It's good to be idealistic. But be prepared to be misunderstood. Anyone working on a big vision will get called crazy, even if you end up right. Anyone working on a complex problem will get blamed for not fully understanding the challenge, even though it's impossible to know everything upfront. Anyone taking initiative will get criticized for moving too fast, because there's always someone who wants to slow you down.
In our society, we often don't do big things because we're so afraid of making mistakes that we ignore all the things wrong today if we do nothing. The reality is, anything we do will have issues in the future. But that can't keep us from starting.
So what are we waiting for? It's time for our generation-defining public works. How about stopping climate change before we destroy the planet and getting millions of people involved manufacturing and installing solar panels? How about curing all diseases and asking volunteers to track their health data and share their genomes? Today we spend 50 times more treating people who are sick than we spend finding cures so people don't get sick in the first place. That makes no sense. We can fix this. How about modernizing democracy so everyone can vote online, and personalizing education so everyone can learn?
These achievements are within our reach. Let's do them all in a way that gives everyone in our society a role. Let's do big things, not only to create progress, but to create purpose.
So taking on big meaningful projects is the first thing we can do to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.
The second is redefining equality to give everyone the freedom they need to pursue purpose.
Many of our parents had stable jobs throughout their careers. Now we're all entrepreneurial, whether we're starting projects or finding or role. And that's great. Our culture of entrepreneurship is how we create so much progress.
Now, an entrepreneurial culture thrives when it's easy to try lots of new ideas. Facebook wasn't the first thing I built. I also built games, chat systems, study tools, and music players. I'm not alone. J.K. Rowling got rejected 12 times before publishing "Harry Potter." Even Beyonce had to make hundreds of songs to get "Halo." The greatest successes come from having the freedom to fail.
But today, we have a level of wealth inequality that hurts everyone. When you don't have the freedom to take your idea and turn it into a historic enterprise, we all lose. Right now, our society is way over-indexed on rewarding success, and we don't do nearly enough to make it easy for everyone to take lots of shots.
Let's face it: There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in 10 years while millions of students can't afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business.
Look, I know a lot of entrepreneurs, and I don't know a single person who gave up on starting a business because they might not make enough money. But I know lots of people who haven't pursued dreams because they didn't have a cushion to fall back on if they failed.
We all know we don't succeed just by having a good idea or working hard. We succeed by being lucky, too. If I had to support my family growing up instead of having time to code, if I didn't know I'd be fine if Facebook didn't work out, I wouldn't be standing here today. If we're honest, we all know how much luck we've had.
Every generation expands its definition of equality. Previous generations fought for the vote and civil rights. They had the New Deal and Great Society. Now it's our time to define a new social contract for our generation.
We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things. We're going to change jobs many times, so we need affordable childcare to get to work and healthcare that aren't tied to one company. We're all going to make mistakes, so we need a society that focuses less on locking us up or stigmatizing us. And as technology keeps changing, we need to focus more on continuous education throughout our lives.
And yes, giving everyone the freedom to pursue purpose isn't free. People like me should pay for it. Many of you will do well, and you should, too.
That's why Priscilla and I started the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and committed our wealth to promoting equal opportunity. These are the values of our generation. It was never a question of if we were going to do this. The only question was when.
Millennials are already one of the most charitable generations in history. In one year, three of four US millennials made a donation, and seven out of 10 raised money for charity.
But it's not just about money. You can also give time. I promise you, if you take an hour or two a week, that's all it takes to give someone a hand, to help them reach their potential.
Maybe you think that's too much time. I used to. When Priscilla graduated from Harvard, she became a teacher, and before she'd do education work with me, she told me I needed to teach a class. I complained: "Well, I'm kind of busy. I'm running this company." But she insisted, so I taught a middle-school program on entrepreneurship at the local Boys and Girls Club.
I taught them lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it's like feeling targeted for your race and having a family member in prison. I shared stories from my time in school, and they shared their hope of one day going to college too. For five years now, I've been having dinner with those kids every month. One of them threw me and Priscilla our first baby shower. And next year they're going to college. Every one of them. First in their families.
We can all make time to give someone a hand. Let's give everyone the freedom to pursue their purpose — not only because it's the right thing to do, but because when more people can turn their dreams into something great, we're all better for it.
Purpose doesn't only come from work. The third way we can create a sense of purpose for everyone is by building community. And when our generation says "everyone," we mean everyone in the world.
Quick show of hands: How many of you are from another country? Now, how many of you are friends with one of these folks? Now we're talking. We have grown up connected.
In a survey asking millennials around the world what defines our identity, the most popular answer wasn't nationality, religion, or ethnicity; it was "citizen of the world." That's a big deal.
Every generation expands the circle of people we consider "one of us." For us, it now encompasses the entire world.
We understand the great arc of human history bends toward people coming together in ever greater numbers — from tribes to cities to nations — to achieve things we couldn't on our own.
We get that our greatest opportunities are now global — we can be the generation that ends poverty, that ends disease.
We get that our greatest challenges need global responses too — no country can fight climate change alone or prevent pandemics. Progress now requires coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community.
But we live in an unstable time. There are people left behind by globalization across the world. It's hard to care about people in other places if we don't feel good about our lives here at home. There's pressure to turn inward.
This is the struggle of our time. The forces of freedom, openness, and global community against the forces of authoritarianism, isolationism, and nationalism. Forces for the flow of knowledge, trade, and immigration against those who would slow them down. This is not a battle of nations; it's a battle of ideas. There are people in every country for global connection and good people against it.
This isn't going to be decided at the UN either. It's going to happen at the local level when enough of us feel a sense of purpose and stability in our own lives that we can open up and start caring about everyone. The best way to do that is to start building local communities right now.
We all get meaning from our communities. Whether our communities are houses or sports teams, churches or music groups, they give us that sense we are part of something bigger, that we are not alone; they give us the strength to expand our horizons.
That's why it's so striking that for decades, membership in all kinds of groups has declined as much as one-quarter.
That's a lot of people who now need to find purpose somewhere else.
But I know we can rebuild our communities and start new ones, because many of you already are.
I met Agnes Igoye, who's graduating today. Where are you, Agnes? She spent her childhood navigating conflict zones in Uganda, and now she trains thousands of law-enforcement officers to keep communities safe.
I met Kayla Oakley and Niha Jain, graduating today, too. Stand up. Kayla and Niha started a nonprofit that connects people suffering from illnesses with people in their communities willing to help.
I met David Razu Aznar, graduating from the Kennedy School today. David, stand up. He's a former city councilor who successfully led the battle to make Mexico City the first Latin American city to pass marriage equality — even before San Francisco.
This is my story, too. A student in a dorm room, connecting one community at a time, and keeping at it until one day we connect the whole world.
Change starts local. Even global changes start small, with people like us. In our generation, the struggle of whether we connect more, whether we achieve our biggest opportunities, comes down to this: your ability to build communities and create a world where every single person has a sense of purpose.
Class of 2017, you are graduating into a world that needs purpose. It's up to you to create it.
Now, you may be thinking: Can I really do this?
Remember when I told you about that class I taught at the Boys and Girls Club? One day after class, I was talking to them about college, and one of my top students raised his hand and said he wasn't sure he could go because he's undocumented. He didn't know if they'd let him in.
Last year, I took him out to breakfast for his birthday. I wanted to get him a present, so I asked him, and he started talking about students he saw struggling and said, "You know, I'd really just like a book on social justice."
I was blown away. Here's a young guy who has every reason to be cynical. He didn't know if the country he calls home — the only one he's known — would deny him his dream of going to college. But he wasn't feeling sorry for himself. He wasn't even thinking of himself. He has a greater sense of purpose, and he's going to bring people along with him.
It says something about our current situation that I can't even say his name because I don't want to put him at risk.
But if a high-school senior who doesn't know what the future holds can do his part to move the world forward, then we owe it to the world to do our part, too.
Before you walk out those gates one last time, as we sit in front of Memorial Church, I am reminded of a prayer, Mi Shebeirach, that I say whenever I face a challenge, that I sing to my daughter thinking about her future when I tuck her into bed. It goes:
"May the source of strength, who blessed the ones before us, help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing."
I hope you find the courage to make your life a blessing.
Congratulations, Class of '17! Good luck out there.
Source:www.youtube.com/www.businessinsider.com
Mark Zuckerberg Harvard Commencement Speech 2017 FACEBOOK CEO'S FULL SPEECH
ABC News
Published on May 25, 2017
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, spoke to the Harvard Class of 2017 for commencement .
Transcript:
Harvard Commencement 2017
President Faust, Board of Overseers, faculty, alumni, friends, proud parents, members of the ad board, and graduates of the greatest university in the world,
I'm honored to be with you today because, let's face it, you accomplished something I never could. If I get through this speech, it'll be the first time I actually finish something at Harvard. Class of 2017, congratulations!
I'm an unlikely speaker, not just because I dropped out, but because we're technically in the same generation. We walked this yard less than a decade apart, studied the same ideas and slept through the same Ec10 lectures. We may have taken different paths to get here, especially if you came all the way from the Quad, but today I want to share what I've learned about our generation and the world we're building together.
But first, the last couple of days have brought back a lot of good memories.
How many of you remember exactly what you were doing when you got that email telling you that you got into Harvard? I was playing "Civilization" and I ran downstairs, got my dad, and for some reason, his reaction was to video me opening the email. That could have been a really sad video. I swear getting into Harvard is still the thing my parents are most proud of me for.
What about your first lecture at Harvard? Mine was Computer Science 121 with the incredible Harry Lewis. I was late so I threw on a T-shirt and didn't realize until afterwards it was inside out and backwards with my tag sticking out the front. I couldn't figure out why no one would talk to me — except one guy, KX Jin, he just went with it. We ended up doing our problem sets together, and now he runs a big part of Facebook. And that, Class of 2017, is why you should be nice to people.
But my best memory from Harvard was meeting Priscilla. I had just launched this prank website, Facemash, and the ad board wanted to "see me." Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out. My parents came to help me pack. My friends threw me a going away party. As luck would have it, Priscilla was at that party with her friend. We met in line for the bathroom in the Pfoho Belltower, and in what must be one of the all-time romantic lines, I said, "I'm going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly."
Actually, any of you graduating can use that line.
I didn't end up getting kicked out — I did that to myself. Priscilla and I started dating. And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn't. But without Facemash I wouldn't have met Priscilla, and she's the most important person in my life, so you could say it was the most important thing I built in my time here.
We've all started lifelong friendships here, and some of us even families. That's why I'm so grateful to this place. Thanks, Harvard.
Today I want to talk about purpose. But I'm not here to give you the standard commencement about finding your purpose. We're millennials. We'll try to do that instinctively. Instead, I'm here to tell you finding your purpose isn't enough. The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.
One of my favorite stories is when John F. Kennedy visited the NASA space center, he saw a janitor carrying a broom and he walked over and asked what he was doing. The janitor responded, "Mr. President, I'm helping put a man on the moon."
Purpose is that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we are needed, that we have something better ahead to work for. Purpose is what creates true happiness.
You're graduating at a time when this is especially important. When our parents graduated, purpose reliably came from your job, your church, your community. But today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs. Membership in communities is declining. Many people feel disconnected and depressed and are trying to fill a void.
As I've traveled around, I've sat with children in juvenile detention and opioid addicts, who told me their lives could have turned out differently if they just had something to do, an after-school program or somewhere to go. I've met factory workers who know their old jobs aren't coming back and are trying to find their place.
To keep our society moving forward, we have a generational challenge — to not only create new jobs, but create a renewed sense of purpose.
I remember the night I launched Facebook from my little dorm in Kirkland House. I went to Noch's with my friend KX. I remember telling him I was excited to connect the Harvard community, but one day someone would connect the whole world.
The thing is, it never even occurred to me that someone might be us. We were just college kids. We didn't know anything about that. There were all these big technology companies with resources. I just assumed one of them would do it. But this idea was so clear to us — that all people want to connect. So we just kept moving forward, day by day.
I know a lot of you will have your own stories just like this. A change in the world that seems so clear you're sure someone else will do it. But they won't. You will.
But it's not enough to have purpose yourself. You have to create a sense of purpose for others.
I found that out the hard way. You see, my hope was never to build a company, but to make an impact. And as all these people started joining us, I just assumed that's what they cared about too, so I never explained what I hoped we'd build.
A couple years in, some big companies wanted to buy us. I didn't want to sell. I wanted to see if we could connect more people. We were building the first News Feed, and I thought if we could just launch this, it could change how we learn about the world.
Nearly everyone else wanted to sell. Without a sense of higher purpose, this was the startup dream come true. It tore our company apart. After one tense argument, an adviser told me if I didn't agree to sell, I would regret the decision for the rest of my life. Relationships were so frayed that within a year or so every single person on the management team was gone.
That was my hardest time leading Facebook. I believed in what we were doing, but I felt alone. And worse, it was my fault. I wondered if I was just wrong, an imposter, a 22-year-old kid who had no idea how the world worked.
Now, years later, I understand that is how things work with no sense of higher purpose. It's up to us to create it so we can all keep moving forward together.
Today I want to talk about three ways to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose: by taking on big meaningful projects together, by redefining equality so everyone has the freedom to pursue purpose, and by building community across the world.
First, let's take on big meaningful projects.
Our generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks. But we have the potential to do so much more together.
Every generation has its defining works. More than 300,000 people worked to put a man on the moon — including that janitor. Millions of volunteers immunized children around the world against polio. Millions of more people built the Hoover Dam and other great projects.
These projects didn't just provide purpose for the people doing those jobs — they gave our whole country a sense of pride that we could do great things.
Now it's our turn to do great things. I know, you're probably thinking: I don't know how to build a dam or get a million people involved in anything.
But let me tell you a secret: no one does when they begin. Ideas don't come out fully formed. They only become clear as you work on them. You just have to get started.
If I had to understand everything about connecting people before I began, I never would have started Facebook.
Movies and pop culture get this all wrong. The idea of a single eureka moment is a dangerous lie. It makes us feel inadequate since we haven't had ours. It prevents people with seeds of good ideas from getting started.
Oh, you know what else movies get wrong about innovation? No one writes math formulas on glass. That's not a thing.
It's good to be idealistic. But be prepared to be misunderstood. Anyone working on a big vision will get called crazy, even if you end up right. Anyone working on a complex problem will get blamed for not fully understanding the challenge, even though it's impossible to know everything upfront. Anyone taking initiative will get criticized for moving too fast, because there's always someone who wants to slow you down.
In our society, we often don't do big things because we're so afraid of making mistakes that we ignore all the things wrong today if we do nothing. The reality is, anything we do will have issues in the future. But that can't keep us from starting.
So what are we waiting for? It's time for our generation-defining public works. How about stopping climate change before we destroy the planet and getting millions of people involved manufacturing and installing solar panels? How about curing all diseases and asking volunteers to track their health data and share their genomes? Today we spend 50 times more treating people who are sick than we spend finding cures so people don't get sick in the first place. That makes no sense. We can fix this. How about modernizing democracy so everyone can vote online, and personalizing education so everyone can learn?
These achievements are within our reach. Let's do them all in a way that gives everyone in our society a role. Let's do big things, not only to create progress, but to create purpose.
So taking on big meaningful projects is the first thing we can do to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.
The second is redefining equality to give everyone the freedom they need to pursue purpose.
Many of our parents had stable jobs throughout their careers. Now we're all entrepreneurial, whether we're starting projects or finding or role. And that's great. Our culture of entrepreneurship is how we create so much progress.
Now, an entrepreneurial culture thrives when it's easy to try lots of new ideas. Facebook wasn't the first thing I built. I also built games, chat systems, study tools, and music players. I'm not alone. J.K. Rowling got rejected 12 times before publishing "Harry Potter." Even Beyonce had to make hundreds of songs to get "Halo." The greatest successes come from having the freedom to fail.
But today, we have a level of wealth inequality that hurts everyone. When you don't have the freedom to take your idea and turn it into a historic enterprise, we all lose. Right now, our society is way over-indexed on rewarding success, and we don't do nearly enough to make it easy for everyone to take lots of shots.
Let's face it: There is something wrong with our system when I can leave here and make billions of dollars in 10 years while millions of students can't afford to pay off their loans, let alone start a business.
Look, I know a lot of entrepreneurs, and I don't know a single person who gave up on starting a business because they might not make enough money. But I know lots of people who haven't pursued dreams because they didn't have a cushion to fall back on if they failed.
We all know we don't succeed just by having a good idea or working hard. We succeed by being lucky, too. If I had to support my family growing up instead of having time to code, if I didn't know I'd be fine if Facebook didn't work out, I wouldn't be standing here today. If we're honest, we all know how much luck we've had.
Every generation expands its definition of equality. Previous generations fought for the vote and civil rights. They had the New Deal and Great Society. Now it's our time to define a new social contract for our generation.
We should have a society that measures progress not just by economic metrics like GDP, but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to give everyone a cushion to try new things. We're going to change jobs many times, so we need affordable childcare to get to work and healthcare that aren't tied to one company. We're all going to make mistakes, so we need a society that focuses less on locking us up or stigmatizing us. And as technology keeps changing, we need to focus more on continuous education throughout our lives.
And yes, giving everyone the freedom to pursue purpose isn't free. People like me should pay for it. Many of you will do well, and you should, too.
That's why Priscilla and I started the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and committed our wealth to promoting equal opportunity. These are the values of our generation. It was never a question of if we were going to do this. The only question was when.
Millennials are already one of the most charitable generations in history. In one year, three of four US millennials made a donation, and seven out of 10 raised money for charity.
But it's not just about money. You can also give time. I promise you, if you take an hour or two a week, that's all it takes to give someone a hand, to help them reach their potential.
Maybe you think that's too much time. I used to. When Priscilla graduated from Harvard, she became a teacher, and before she'd do education work with me, she told me I needed to teach a class. I complained: "Well, I'm kind of busy. I'm running this company." But she insisted, so I taught a middle-school program on entrepreneurship at the local Boys and Girls Club.
I taught them lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it's like feeling targeted for your race and having a family member in prison. I shared stories from my time in school, and they shared their hope of one day going to college too. For five years now, I've been having dinner with those kids every month. One of them threw me and Priscilla our first baby shower. And next year they're going to college. Every one of them. First in their families.
We can all make time to give someone a hand. Let's give everyone the freedom to pursue their purpose — not only because it's the right thing to do, but because when more people can turn their dreams into something great, we're all better for it.
Purpose doesn't only come from work. The third way we can create a sense of purpose for everyone is by building community. And when our generation says "everyone," we mean everyone in the world.
Quick show of hands: How many of you are from another country? Now, how many of you are friends with one of these folks? Now we're talking. We have grown up connected.
In a survey asking millennials around the world what defines our identity, the most popular answer wasn't nationality, religion, or ethnicity; it was "citizen of the world." That's a big deal.
Every generation expands the circle of people we consider "one of us." For us, it now encompasses the entire world.
We understand the great arc of human history bends toward people coming together in ever greater numbers — from tribes to cities to nations — to achieve things we couldn't on our own.
We get that our greatest opportunities are now global — we can be the generation that ends poverty, that ends disease.
We get that our greatest challenges need global responses too — no country can fight climate change alone or prevent pandemics. Progress now requires coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community.
But we live in an unstable time. There are people left behind by globalization across the world. It's hard to care about people in other places if we don't feel good about our lives here at home. There's pressure to turn inward.
This is the struggle of our time. The forces of freedom, openness, and global community against the forces of authoritarianism, isolationism, and nationalism. Forces for the flow of knowledge, trade, and immigration against those who would slow them down. This is not a battle of nations; it's a battle of ideas. There are people in every country for global connection and good people against it.
This isn't going to be decided at the UN either. It's going to happen at the local level when enough of us feel a sense of purpose and stability in our own lives that we can open up and start caring about everyone. The best way to do that is to start building local communities right now.
We all get meaning from our communities. Whether our communities are houses or sports teams, churches or music groups, they give us that sense we are part of something bigger, that we are not alone; they give us the strength to expand our horizons.
That's why it's so striking that for decades, membership in all kinds of groups has declined as much as one-quarter.
That's a lot of people who now need to find purpose somewhere else.
But I know we can rebuild our communities and start new ones, because many of you already are.
I met Agnes Igoye, who's graduating today. Where are you, Agnes? She spent her childhood navigating conflict zones in Uganda, and now she trains thousands of law-enforcement officers to keep communities safe.
I met Kayla Oakley and Niha Jain, graduating today, too. Stand up. Kayla and Niha started a nonprofit that connects people suffering from illnesses with people in their communities willing to help.
I met David Razu Aznar, graduating from the Kennedy School today. David, stand up. He's a former city councilor who successfully led the battle to make Mexico City the first Latin American city to pass marriage equality — even before San Francisco.
This is my story, too. A student in a dorm room, connecting one community at a time, and keeping at it until one day we connect the whole world.
Change starts local. Even global changes start small, with people like us. In our generation, the struggle of whether we connect more, whether we achieve our biggest opportunities, comes down to this: your ability to build communities and create a world where every single person has a sense of purpose.
Class of 2017, you are graduating into a world that needs purpose. It's up to you to create it.
Now, you may be thinking: Can I really do this?
Remember when I told you about that class I taught at the Boys and Girls Club? One day after class, I was talking to them about college, and one of my top students raised his hand and said he wasn't sure he could go because he's undocumented. He didn't know if they'd let him in.
Last year, I took him out to breakfast for his birthday. I wanted to get him a present, so I asked him, and he started talking about students he saw struggling and said, "You know, I'd really just like a book on social justice."
I was blown away. Here's a young guy who has every reason to be cynical. He didn't know if the country he calls home — the only one he's known — would deny him his dream of going to college. But he wasn't feeling sorry for himself. He wasn't even thinking of himself. He has a greater sense of purpose, and he's going to bring people along with him.
It says something about our current situation that I can't even say his name because I don't want to put him at risk.
But if a high-school senior who doesn't know what the future holds can do his part to move the world forward, then we owe it to the world to do our part, too.
Before you walk out those gates one last time, as we sit in front of Memorial Church, I am reminded of a prayer, Mi Shebeirach, that I say whenever I face a challenge, that I sing to my daughter thinking about her future when I tuck her into bed. It goes:
"May the source of strength, who blessed the ones before us, help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing."
I hope you find the courage to make your life a blessing.
Congratulations, Class of '17! Good luck out there.
Source:www.youtube.com/www.businessinsider.com
Friday, June 9, 2017
DGN/GINT-TED Talks-Michael Bierut: How to design a library that makes kids want to read
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Filmed March 2017 at TEDNYC
Michael Bierut: How to design a library that makes kids want to read
When Michael Bierut was tapped to design a logo for public school libraries, he had no idea that he was embarking on a years-long passion project. In this often hilarious talk, he recalls his obsessive quest to bring energy, learning, art and graphics into these magical spaces where school librarians can inspire new generations of readers and thinkers.
Transcript:
So there's this thing called the law of unintended consequences. I thought it was just like a saying, but it actually exists, I guess. There's, like, academic papers about it. And I'm a designer. I don't like unintended consequences. People hire me because they have consequences that they really intend, and what they intend is for me to help them achieve those consequences. So I live in fear of unintended consequences. And so this is a story about consequences intended and unintended.
I got called by an organization called Robin Hood to do a favor for them. Robin Hood is based in New York, a wonderful philanthropic organization that does what it says in the name. They take from rich people, give it to poor people. In this case, what they wanted to benefit was the New York City school system, a huge enterprise that educates more than a million students at a time, and in buildings that are like this one, old buildings, big buildings, drafty buildings, sometimes buildings that are in disrepair, certainly buildings that could use a renovation. Robin Hood had this ambition to improve these buildings in some way, but what they realized was to fix the buildings would be too expensive and impractical. So instead they tried to figure out what one room they could go into in each of these buildings, in as many buildings that they could, and fix that one room so that they could improve the lives of the children inside as they were studying. And what they came up with was the school library, and they came up with this idea called the Library Initiative. All the students have to pass through the library. That's where the books are. That's where the heart and soul of the school is. So let's fix these libraries.
So they did this wonderful thing where they brought in first 10, then 20, then more architects, each one of whom was assigned a library to rethink what a library was. They trained special librarians. So they started this mighty enterprise to reform public schools by improving these libraries. Then they called me up and they said, "Could you make a little contribution?" I said, "Sure, what do you want me to do?" And they said, "Well, we want you to be the graphic designer in charge of the whole thing." And so I thought, I know what that means. That means I get to design a logo. I know how to design that. I design logos. That's what people come to me for. So OK, let's design a logo for this thing. Easy to do, actually, compared with architecture and being a librarian. Just do a logo, make a contribution, and then you're out, and you feel really good about yourself. And I'm a great guy and I like to feel good about myself when I do these favors.
So I thought, let's overdeliver. I'm going to give you three logos, all based on this one idea. So you have three options, pick any of the three. They're all great, I said. So the basic idea was these would be new school libraries for New York schools, and so the idea is that it's a new thing, a new idea that needs a new name. What I wanted to do was dispel the idea that these were musty old libraries, the kind of places that everyone is bored with, you know, not your grandparents' library. Don't worry about that at all. This is going to this new, exciting thing, not a boring library.
So option number one: so instead of thinking of it as a library, think of it as a place where it is like: do talk, do make loud noises. Right? So no shushing, it's like a shush-free zone. We're going to call it the Reading Room.
That was option number one. OK, option number two. Option number two was, wait for it, OWL. I'll meet you at OWL. I'm getting my book from the OWL. Meet you after school down at OWL. I like that, right? Now, what does OWL stand for? Well, it could be One World Library, or it could be Open. Wonder. Learn. Or it could be — and I figure librarians could figure out other things it could be because they know about words. So other things, right? And then look at this. It's like the eye of the owl. This is irresistible in my opinion.
But there's even another idea. Option number three. Option number three was based actually on language. It's the idea that "read" is the past tense of "read," and they're both spelled the same way. So why don't we call this place The Red Zone? I'll meet you at the Red Zone. Are you Red? Get Red. I'm well Red.
(Laughter)
I really loved this idea, and I somehow was not focused on the idea that librarians as a class are sort of interested in spelling and I don't know.
(Laughter)
But sometimes cleverness is more important than spelling, and I thought this would be one of those instances. So usually when I make these presentations I say there's just one question and the question should be, "How can I thank you, Mike?" But in this case, the question was more like, "Um, are you kidding?" Because, they said, the premise of all this work was that kids were bored with old libraries, musty old libraries. They were tired of them. And instead, they said, these kids have never really seen a library. The school libraries in these schools are really so dilapidated, if they're there at all, that they haven't bored anyone. They haven't even been there to bore anyone at all. So the idea was, just forget about giving it a new name. Just call it, one last try, a library. Right? OK. So I thought, OK, give it a little oomph? Exclamation point? Then — this is because I'm clever — move that into the "i," make it red, and there you have it, the Library Initiative. So I thought, mission accomplished, there's your logo. So what's interesting about this logo, an unintended consequence, was that it turned out that they didn't really even need my design because you could type it any font, you could write it by hand, and when they started sending emails around, they just would use Shift and 1, they'd get their own logo just right out of the thing. And I thought, well, that's fine. Feel free to use that logo. And then I embarked on the real rollout of this thing — working with every one of the architects to put this logo on the front door of their own library. Right?
So here's the big rollout. Basically I'd work with different architects. First Robin Hood was my client. Now these architects were my client. I'd say, "Here's your logo. Put it on the door." "Here's your logo. Put it on both doors." "Here's your logo. Put it off to the side." "Here's your logo repeated all over to the top." So everything was going swimmingly. I just was saying, "Here's your logo. Here's your logo."
Then I got a call from one of the architects, a guy named Richard Lewis, and he says, "I've got a problem. You're the graphics guy. Can you solve it?" And I said, OK, sure." And he said, "The problem is that there's a space between the shelf and the ceiling." So that sounds like an architectural issue to me, not a graphic design issue, so I'm, "Go on." And Richard says, "Well, the top shelf has to be low enough for the kid to reach it, but I'm in a big old building, and the ceilings are really high, so actually I've got all this space up there and I need something like a mural." And I'm like, "Whoa, you know, I'm a logo designer. I'm not Diego Rivera or something. I'm not a muralist." And so he said, "But can't you think of anything?" So I said, "OK, what if we just took pictures of the kids in the school and just put them around the top of the thing, and maybe that could work." And my wife is a photographer, and I said, "Dorothy, there's no budget, can you come to this school in east New York, take these pictures?" And she did, and if you go in Richard's library, which is one of the first that opened, it has this glorious frieze of, like, the heroes of the school, oversized, looking down into the little dollhouse of the real library, right? And the kids were great, hand-selected by the principals and the librarian. It just kind of created this heroic atmosphere in this library, this very dignified setting below and the joy of the children above.
So naturally all the other librarians in the other schools see this and they said, well, we want murals too. And I'm like, OK. So then I think, well, it can't be the same mural every time, so Dorothy did another one, and then she did another one, but then we needed more help, so I called an illustrator I knew named Lynn Pauley, and Lynn did these beautiful paintings of the kids. Then I called a guy named Charles Wilkin at a place called Automatic Design. He did these amazing collages. We had Rafael Esquer do these great silhouettes. He would work with the kids, asking for words, and then based on those prompts, come up with this little, delirious kind of constellation of silhouettes of things that are in books. Peter Arkle interviewed the kids and had them talk about their favorite books and he put their testimony as a frieze up there. Stefan Sagmeister worked with Yuko Shimizu and they did this amazing manga-style statement, "Everyone who is honest is interesting," that goes all the way around. Christoph Niemann, brilliant illustrator, did a whole series of things where he embedded books into the faces and characters and images and places that you find in the books. And then even Maira Kalman did this amazing cryptic installation of objects and words that kind of go all around and will fascinate students for as long as it's up there.
So this was really satisfying, and basically my role here was reading a series of dimensions to these artists, and I would say, "Three feet by 15 feet, whatever you want. Let me know if you have any problem with that." And they would go and install these. It just was the greatest thing.
But the greatest thing, actually, was — Every once in a while, I'd get, like, an invitation in the mail made of construction paper, and it would say, "You are invited to the opening of our new library." So you'd go to the library, say, you'd go to PS10, and you'd go inside. There'd be balloons, there'd be a student ambassador, there'd be speeches that were read, poetry that was written specifically for the opening, dignitaries would present people with certificates, and the whole thing was just a delirious, fun party. So I loved going to these things. I would stand there dressed like this, obviously not belonging, and someone would say, "What are you doing here, mister?" And I'd say, "Well, I'm part of the team that designed this place." And they'd said, "You do these shelves?" And I said, "No." "You took the pictures up above." "No." "Well, what did you do?" "You know when you came in? The sign over the door?" "The sign that says library?"
(Laughter)
"Yeah, I did that!" And then they'd sort of go, "OK. Nice work if you can get it." So it was so satisfying going to these little openings despite the fact that I was kind of largely ignored or humiliated, but it was actually fun going to the openings, so I decided that I wanted to get the people in my office who had worked on these projects, get the illustrators and photographers, and I said, why don't we rent a van and drive around the five boroughs of New York and see how many we could hit at one time. And eventually there were going to be 60 of these libraries, so we probably got to see maybe half a dozen in one long day. And the best thing of all was meeting these librarians who kind of were running these, took possession of these places like their private stage upon which they were invited to mesmerize their students and bring the books to life, and it was just this really exciting experience for all of us to actually see these things in action. So we spent a long day doing this and we were in the very last library. It was still winter, because it got dark early, and the librarian says, "I'm about to close down. So really nice having you here. Hey, wait a second, do you want to see how I turn off the lights?" I'm like, "OK." And she said, "I have this special way that I do it." And then she showed me. What she did was she turned out every light one by one by one by one, and the last light she left on was the light that illuminated the kids' faces, and she said, "That's the last light I turn off every night, because I like to remind myself why I come to work."
So when I started this whole thing, remember, it was just about designing that logo and being clever, come up with a new name? The unintended consequence here, which I would like to take credit for and like to think I can think through the experience to that extent, but I can't. I was just focused on a foot ahead of me, as far as I could reach with my own hands. Instead, way off in the distance was a librarian who was going to find the chain of consequences that we had set in motion, a source of inspiration so that she in this case could do her work really well. 40,000 kids a year are affected by these libraries. They've been happening for more than 10 years now, so those librarians have kind of turned on a generation of children to books and so it's been a thrill to find out that sometimes unintended consequences are the best consequences.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Filmed March 2017 at TEDNYC
Michael Bierut: How to design a library that makes kids want to read
When Michael Bierut was tapped to design a logo for public school libraries, he had no idea that he was embarking on a years-long passion project. In this often hilarious talk, he recalls his obsessive quest to bring energy, learning, art and graphics into these magical spaces where school librarians can inspire new generations of readers and thinkers.
Transcript:
So there's this thing called the law of unintended consequences. I thought it was just like a saying, but it actually exists, I guess. There's, like, academic papers about it. And I'm a designer. I don't like unintended consequences. People hire me because they have consequences that they really intend, and what they intend is for me to help them achieve those consequences. So I live in fear of unintended consequences. And so this is a story about consequences intended and unintended.
I got called by an organization called Robin Hood to do a favor for them. Robin Hood is based in New York, a wonderful philanthropic organization that does what it says in the name. They take from rich people, give it to poor people. In this case, what they wanted to benefit was the New York City school system, a huge enterprise that educates more than a million students at a time, and in buildings that are like this one, old buildings, big buildings, drafty buildings, sometimes buildings that are in disrepair, certainly buildings that could use a renovation. Robin Hood had this ambition to improve these buildings in some way, but what they realized was to fix the buildings would be too expensive and impractical. So instead they tried to figure out what one room they could go into in each of these buildings, in as many buildings that they could, and fix that one room so that they could improve the lives of the children inside as they were studying. And what they came up with was the school library, and they came up with this idea called the Library Initiative. All the students have to pass through the library. That's where the books are. That's where the heart and soul of the school is. So let's fix these libraries.
So they did this wonderful thing where they brought in first 10, then 20, then more architects, each one of whom was assigned a library to rethink what a library was. They trained special librarians. So they started this mighty enterprise to reform public schools by improving these libraries. Then they called me up and they said, "Could you make a little contribution?" I said, "Sure, what do you want me to do?" And they said, "Well, we want you to be the graphic designer in charge of the whole thing." And so I thought, I know what that means. That means I get to design a logo. I know how to design that. I design logos. That's what people come to me for. So OK, let's design a logo for this thing. Easy to do, actually, compared with architecture and being a librarian. Just do a logo, make a contribution, and then you're out, and you feel really good about yourself. And I'm a great guy and I like to feel good about myself when I do these favors.
So I thought, let's overdeliver. I'm going to give you three logos, all based on this one idea. So you have three options, pick any of the three. They're all great, I said. So the basic idea was these would be new school libraries for New York schools, and so the idea is that it's a new thing, a new idea that needs a new name. What I wanted to do was dispel the idea that these were musty old libraries, the kind of places that everyone is bored with, you know, not your grandparents' library. Don't worry about that at all. This is going to this new, exciting thing, not a boring library.
So option number one: so instead of thinking of it as a library, think of it as a place where it is like: do talk, do make loud noises. Right? So no shushing, it's like a shush-free zone. We're going to call it the Reading Room.
That was option number one. OK, option number two. Option number two was, wait for it, OWL. I'll meet you at OWL. I'm getting my book from the OWL. Meet you after school down at OWL. I like that, right? Now, what does OWL stand for? Well, it could be One World Library, or it could be Open. Wonder. Learn. Or it could be — and I figure librarians could figure out other things it could be because they know about words. So other things, right? And then look at this. It's like the eye of the owl. This is irresistible in my opinion.
But there's even another idea. Option number three. Option number three was based actually on language. It's the idea that "read" is the past tense of "read," and they're both spelled the same way. So why don't we call this place The Red Zone? I'll meet you at the Red Zone. Are you Red? Get Red. I'm well Red.
(Laughter)
I really loved this idea, and I somehow was not focused on the idea that librarians as a class are sort of interested in spelling and I don't know.
(Laughter)
But sometimes cleverness is more important than spelling, and I thought this would be one of those instances. So usually when I make these presentations I say there's just one question and the question should be, "How can I thank you, Mike?" But in this case, the question was more like, "Um, are you kidding?" Because, they said, the premise of all this work was that kids were bored with old libraries, musty old libraries. They were tired of them. And instead, they said, these kids have never really seen a library. The school libraries in these schools are really so dilapidated, if they're there at all, that they haven't bored anyone. They haven't even been there to bore anyone at all. So the idea was, just forget about giving it a new name. Just call it, one last try, a library. Right? OK. So I thought, OK, give it a little oomph? Exclamation point? Then — this is because I'm clever — move that into the "i," make it red, and there you have it, the Library Initiative. So I thought, mission accomplished, there's your logo. So what's interesting about this logo, an unintended consequence, was that it turned out that they didn't really even need my design because you could type it any font, you could write it by hand, and when they started sending emails around, they just would use Shift and 1, they'd get their own logo just right out of the thing. And I thought, well, that's fine. Feel free to use that logo. And then I embarked on the real rollout of this thing — working with every one of the architects to put this logo on the front door of their own library. Right?
So here's the big rollout. Basically I'd work with different architects. First Robin Hood was my client. Now these architects were my client. I'd say, "Here's your logo. Put it on the door." "Here's your logo. Put it on both doors." "Here's your logo. Put it off to the side." "Here's your logo repeated all over to the top." So everything was going swimmingly. I just was saying, "Here's your logo. Here's your logo."
Then I got a call from one of the architects, a guy named Richard Lewis, and he says, "I've got a problem. You're the graphics guy. Can you solve it?" And I said, OK, sure." And he said, "The problem is that there's a space between the shelf and the ceiling." So that sounds like an architectural issue to me, not a graphic design issue, so I'm, "Go on." And Richard says, "Well, the top shelf has to be low enough for the kid to reach it, but I'm in a big old building, and the ceilings are really high, so actually I've got all this space up there and I need something like a mural." And I'm like, "Whoa, you know, I'm a logo designer. I'm not Diego Rivera or something. I'm not a muralist." And so he said, "But can't you think of anything?" So I said, "OK, what if we just took pictures of the kids in the school and just put them around the top of the thing, and maybe that could work." And my wife is a photographer, and I said, "Dorothy, there's no budget, can you come to this school in east New York, take these pictures?" And she did, and if you go in Richard's library, which is one of the first that opened, it has this glorious frieze of, like, the heroes of the school, oversized, looking down into the little dollhouse of the real library, right? And the kids were great, hand-selected by the principals and the librarian. It just kind of created this heroic atmosphere in this library, this very dignified setting below and the joy of the children above.
So naturally all the other librarians in the other schools see this and they said, well, we want murals too. And I'm like, OK. So then I think, well, it can't be the same mural every time, so Dorothy did another one, and then she did another one, but then we needed more help, so I called an illustrator I knew named Lynn Pauley, and Lynn did these beautiful paintings of the kids. Then I called a guy named Charles Wilkin at a place called Automatic Design. He did these amazing collages. We had Rafael Esquer do these great silhouettes. He would work with the kids, asking for words, and then based on those prompts, come up with this little, delirious kind of constellation of silhouettes of things that are in books. Peter Arkle interviewed the kids and had them talk about their favorite books and he put their testimony as a frieze up there. Stefan Sagmeister worked with Yuko Shimizu and they did this amazing manga-style statement, "Everyone who is honest is interesting," that goes all the way around. Christoph Niemann, brilliant illustrator, did a whole series of things where he embedded books into the faces and characters and images and places that you find in the books. And then even Maira Kalman did this amazing cryptic installation of objects and words that kind of go all around and will fascinate students for as long as it's up there.
So this was really satisfying, and basically my role here was reading a series of dimensions to these artists, and I would say, "Three feet by 15 feet, whatever you want. Let me know if you have any problem with that." And they would go and install these. It just was the greatest thing.
But the greatest thing, actually, was — Every once in a while, I'd get, like, an invitation in the mail made of construction paper, and it would say, "You are invited to the opening of our new library." So you'd go to the library, say, you'd go to PS10, and you'd go inside. There'd be balloons, there'd be a student ambassador, there'd be speeches that were read, poetry that was written specifically for the opening, dignitaries would present people with certificates, and the whole thing was just a delirious, fun party. So I loved going to these things. I would stand there dressed like this, obviously not belonging, and someone would say, "What are you doing here, mister?" And I'd say, "Well, I'm part of the team that designed this place." And they'd said, "You do these shelves?" And I said, "No." "You took the pictures up above." "No." "Well, what did you do?" "You know when you came in? The sign over the door?" "The sign that says library?"
(Laughter)
"Yeah, I did that!" And then they'd sort of go, "OK. Nice work if you can get it." So it was so satisfying going to these little openings despite the fact that I was kind of largely ignored or humiliated, but it was actually fun going to the openings, so I decided that I wanted to get the people in my office who had worked on these projects, get the illustrators and photographers, and I said, why don't we rent a van and drive around the five boroughs of New York and see how many we could hit at one time. And eventually there were going to be 60 of these libraries, so we probably got to see maybe half a dozen in one long day. And the best thing of all was meeting these librarians who kind of were running these, took possession of these places like their private stage upon which they were invited to mesmerize their students and bring the books to life, and it was just this really exciting experience for all of us to actually see these things in action. So we spent a long day doing this and we were in the very last library. It was still winter, because it got dark early, and the librarian says, "I'm about to close down. So really nice having you here. Hey, wait a second, do you want to see how I turn off the lights?" I'm like, "OK." And she said, "I have this special way that I do it." And then she showed me. What she did was she turned out every light one by one by one by one, and the last light she left on was the light that illuminated the kids' faces, and she said, "That's the last light I turn off every night, because I like to remind myself why I come to work."
So when I started this whole thing, remember, it was just about designing that logo and being clever, come up with a new name? The unintended consequence here, which I would like to take credit for and like to think I can think through the experience to that extent, but I can't. I was just focused on a foot ahead of me, as far as I could reach with my own hands. Instead, way off in the distance was a librarian who was going to find the chain of consequences that we had set in motion, a source of inspiration so that she in this case could do her work really well. 40,000 kids a year are affected by these libraries. They've been happening for more than 10 years now, so those librarians have kind of turned on a generation of children to books and so it's been a thrill to find out that sometimes unintended consequences are the best consequences.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
HEALTH/GINT-TED Talks-Raj Panjabi: No one should die because they live too far from a doctor
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Filmed April 2017 at TED2017
Raj Panjabi: No one should die because they live too far from a doctor
Illness is universal — but access to care is not. Physician Raj Panjabi has a bold vision to bring health care to everyone, everywhere. With the 2017 TED Prize, Panjabi is building the Community Health Academy, a global platform that aims to modernize how community health workers learn vital skills, creating jobs along the way.
Transcript:
I want to share with you something my father taught me: no condition is permanent. It's a lesson he shared with me again and again, and I learned it to be true the hard way.
Here I am in my fourth-grade class. This is my yearbook picture taken in my class in school in Monrovia, Liberia. My parents migrated from India to West Africa in the 1970s, and I had the privilege of growing up there. I was nine years old, I loved kicking around a soccer ball, and I was a total math and science geek. I was living the kind of life that, really, any child would dream of. But no condition is permanent.
On Christmas Eve in 1989, civil war erupted in Liberia. The war started in the rural countryside, and within months, rebel armies had marched towards our hometown. My school shut down, and when the rebel armies captured the only international airport, people started panicking and fleeing. My mom came knocking one morning and said, "Raj, pack your things — we have to go." We were rushed to the center of town, and there on a tarmac, we were split into two lines. I stood with my family in one line, and we were stuffed into the cargo hatch of a rescue plane. And there on a bench, I was sitting with my heart racing. As I looked out the open hatch, I saw hundreds of Liberians in another line, children strapped to their backs. When they tried to jump in with us, I watched soldiers restrain them. They were not allowed to flee.
We were the lucky ones. We lost what we had, but we resettled in America, and as immigrants, we benefitted from the community of supporters that rallied around us. They took my family into their home, they mentored me. And they helped my dad start a clothing shop. I'd visit my father on weekends as a teenager to help him sell sneakers and jeans. And every time business would get bad, he'd remind me of that mantra: no condition is permanent. That mantra and my parents' persistence and that community of supporters made it possible for me to go through college and eventually to medical school. I'd once had my hopes crushed in a war, but because of them, I had a chance to pursue my dream to become a doctor. My condition had changed.
It had been 15 years since I escaped that airfield, but the memory of those two lines had not escaped my mind. I was a medical student in my mid-20s, and I wanted to go back to see if I could serve the people we'd left behind. But when I got back, what I found was utter destruction. The war had left us with just 51 doctors to serve a country of four million people. It would be like the city of San Francisco having just 10 doctors. So if you got sick in the city where those few doctors remain, you might stand a chance. But if you got sick in the remote, rural rainforest communities, where you could be days from the nearest clinic — I was seeing my patients die from conditions no one should die from, all because they were getting to me too late. Imagine you have a two-year-old who wakes up one morning with a fever, and you realize she could have malaria, and you know the only way to get her the medicine she needs would be to take her to the riverbed, get in a canoe, paddle to the other side and then walk for up to two days through the forest just to reach the nearest clinic.
One billion people live in the world's most remote communities, and despite the advances we've made in modern medicine and technology, our innovations are not reaching the last mile. These communities have been left behind, because they've been thought too hard to reach and too difficult to serve. Illness is universal; access to care is not. And realizing this lit a fire in my soul. No one should die because they live too far from a doctor or clinic. No condition should be permanent. And help in this case didn't come from the outside, it actually came from within. It came from the communities themselves.
Meet Musu. Way out in rural Liberia, where most girls have not had a chance to finish primary school, Musu had been persistent. At the age of 18, she completed high school, and she came back to her community. She saw that none of the children were getting treatment for the diseases they needed treatment for — deadly diseases, like malaria and pneumonia. So she signed up to be a volunteer. There are millions of volunteers like Musu in rural parts around our world, and we got to thinking — community members like Musu could actually help us solve a puzzle.
Our health care system is structured in such a way that the work of diagnosing disease and prescribing medicines is limited to a team of nurses and doctors like me. But nurses and doctors are concentrated in cities, so rural communities like Musu's have been left behind.
So we started asking some questions: What if we could reorganize the medical care system? What if we could have community members like Musu be a part or even be the center of our medical team? What if Musu could help us bring health care from clinics in cities to the doorsteps of her neighbors? Musu was 48 when I met her. And despite her amazing talent and grit, she hadn't had a paying job in 30 years. So what if technology could support her? What if we could invest in her with real training, equip her with real medicines, and have her have a real job?
Well, in 2007, I was trying to answer these questions, and my wife and I were getting married that year. We asked our relatives to forgo the wedding registry gifts and instead donate some money so we could have some start-up money to launch a nonprofit. I promise you, I'm a lot more romantic than that.
(Laughter)
We ended up raising $6,000, teamed up with some Liberians and Americans and launched a nonprofit called Last Mile Health. Our goal is to bring a health worker within reach of everyone, everywhere. We designed a three-step process — train, equip and pay — to invest more deeply in volunteers like Musu to become paraprofessionals, to become community health workers.
First we trained Musu to prevent, diagnose and treat the top 10 diseases afflicting families in her village. A nurse supervisor visited her every month to coach her. We equipped her with modern medical technology, like this $1 malaria rapid test, and put it in a backpack full of medicines like this to treat infections like pneumonia, and crucially, a smartphone, to help her track and report on epidemics. Last, we recognized the dignity in Musu's work. With the Liberian government, we created a contract, paid her and gave her the chance to have a real job. And she's amazing.
Musu has learned over 30 medical skills, from screening children for malnutrition, to assessing the cause of a child's cough with a smartphone, to supporting people with HIV and providing follow-up care to patients who've lost their limbs. Working as part of our team, working as paraprofessionals, community health workers can help ensure that a lot of what your family doctor would do reaches the places that most family doctors could never go.
One of my favorite things to do is to care for patients with community health workers. So last year I was visiting A.B., and like Musu, A.B. had had a chance to go to school. He was in middle school, in the eighth grade, when his parents died. He became an orphan and had to drop out. Last year, we hired and trained A.B. as a community health worker. And while he was making door to door house calls, he met this young boy named Prince, whose mother had had trouble breastfeeding him, and by the age of six months, Prince had started to waste away. A.B. had just been taught how to use this color-coded measuring tape that wraps around the upper arm of a child to diagnose malnutrition. A.B. noticed that Prince was in the red zone, which meant he had to be hospitalized.
So A.B. took Prince and his mother to the river, got in a canoe and paddled for four hours to get to the hospital. Later, after Prince was discharged, A.B. taught mom how to feed baby a food supplement. A few months ago, A.B. took me to visit Prince, and he's a chubby little guy.
(Laughter)
He's meeting his milestones, he's pulled himself up to a stand, and is even starting to say a few words. I'm so inspired by these community health workers. I often ask them why they do what they do, and when I asked A.B., he said, "Doc, since I dropped out of school, this is the first time I'm having a chance to hold a pen to write. My brain is getting fresh."
The stories of A.B. and Musu have taught me something fundamental about being human. Our will to serve others can actually help us transform our own conditions. I was so moved by how powerful the will to serve our neighbors can be a few years ago, when we faced a global catastrophe.
In December 2013, something happened in the rainforests across the border from us in Guinea. A toddler named Emile fell sick with vomiting, fever and diarrhea. He lived in an area where the roads were sparse and there had been massive shortages of health workers. Emile died, and a few weeks later his sister died, and a few weeks later his mother died. And this disease would spread from one community to another. And it wasn't until three months later that the world recognized this as Ebola. When every minute counted, we had already lost months, and by then the virus had spread like wildfire all across West Africa, and eventually to other parts of the world. Businesses shut down, airlines started canceling routes.
At the height of the crisis, when we were told that 1.4 million people could be infected, when we were told that most of them would die, when we had nearly lost all hope, I remember standing with a group of health workers in the rainforest where an outbreak had just happened. We were helping train and equip them to put on the masks, the gloves and the gowns that they needed to keep themselves safe from the virus while they were serving their patients. I remember the fear in their eyes. And I remember staying up at night, terrified if I'd made the right call to keep them in the field.
When Ebola threatened to bring humanity to its knees, Liberia's community health workers didn't surrender to fear. They did what they had always done: they answered the call to serve their neighbors. Community members across Liberia learned the symptoms of Ebola, teamed up with nurses and doctors to go door-to-door to find the sick and get them into care. They tracked thousands of people who had been exposed to the virus and helped break the chain of transmission. Some ten thousand community health workers risked their own lives to help hunt down this virus and stop it in its tracks.
(Applause)
Today, Ebola has come under control in West Africa, and we've learned a few things. We've learned that blind spots in rural health care can lead to hot spots of disease, and that places all of us at greater risk. We've learned that the most efficient emergency system is actually an everyday system, and that system has to reach all communities, including rural communities like Emile's. And most of all, we've learned from the courage of Liberia's community health workers that we as people are not defined by the conditions we face, no matter how hopeless they seem. We're defined by how we respond to them.
For the past 15 years, I've seen the power of this idea to transform everyday citizens into community health workers — into everyday heroes. And I've seen it play out everywhere, from the forest communities of West Africa, to the rural fishing villages of Alaska. It's true, these community health workers aren't doing neurosurgery, but they're making it possible to bring health care within reach of everyone everywhere.
So now what? Well, we know that there are still millions of people dying from preventable causes in rural communities around the world. And we know that the great majority of these deaths are happening in these 75 blue-shaded countries. What we also know is that if we trained an army of community health workers to learn even just 30 lifesaving skills, we could save the lives of nearly 30 million people by 2030. Thirty services could save 30 million lives by 2030. That's not just a blueprint — we're proving this can be done.
In Liberia, the Liberian government is training thousands of workers like A.B. and Musu after Ebola, to bring health care to every child and family in the country. And we've been honored to work with them, and are now teaming up with a number of organizations that are working across other countries to try to help them do the same thing. If we could help these countries scale, we could save millions of lives, and at the same time, we could create millions of jobs.
We simply can't do that, though, without technology. People are worried that technology is going to steal our jobs, but when it comes to community health workers, technology has actually been vital for creating jobs. Without technology — without this smartphone, without this rapid test — it would have been impossible for us to be able to employ A.B. and Musu. And I think it's time for technology to help us train, to help us train people faster and better than ever before.
As a doctor, I use technology to stay up-to-date and keep certified. I use smartphones, I use apps, I use online courses. But when A.B. wants to learn, he's got to jump back in that canoe and get to the training center. And when Musu shows up for training, her instructors are stuck using flip charts and markers. Why shouldn't they have the same access to learn as I do? If we truly want community health workers to master those lifesaving skills and even more, we've got to change this old-school model of education. Tech can truly be a game changer here. I've been in awe of the digital education revolution that the likes of Khan Academy and edX have been leading. And I've been thinking that it's time; it's time for a collision between the digital education revolution and the community health revolution.
And so, this brings me to my TED Prize wish. I wish — I wish that you would help us recruit the largest army of community health workers the world has ever known by creating the Community Health Academy, a global platform to train, connect and empower.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you.
Here's the idea: we'll create and curate the best in digital education resources. We will bring those to community health workers around the world, including A.B. and Musu. They'll get video lessons on giving kids vaccines and have online courses on spotting the next outbreak, so they're not stuck using flip charts. We'll help these countries accredit these workers, so that they're not stuck remaining an under-recognized, undervalued group, but become a renowned, empowered profession, just like nurses and doctors.
And we'll create a network of companies and entrepreneurs who've created innovations that can save lives and help them connect to workers like Musu, so she can help better serve her community. And we'll work tirelessly to persuade governments to make community health workers a cornerstone of their health care plans. We plan to test and prototype the academy in Liberia and a few other partner countries, and then we plan to take it global, including to rural North America. With the power of this platform, we believe countries can be more persuaded that a health care revolution really is possible.
My dream is that this academy will contribute to the training of hundreds of thousands of community members to help bring health care to their neighbors — the hundreds of millions of them that live in the world's most remote communities, from the forest communities of West Africa, to the fishing villages of rural Alaska; from the hilltops of Appalachia, to the mountains of Afghanistan. If this vision is aligned with yours, head to communityhealthacademy.org, and join this revolution. Let us know if you or your organization or someone you know could help us as we try to build this academy over the next year.
Now, as I look out into this room, I realize that our journeys are not self-made; they're shaped by others. And there have been so many here that have been part of this cause. We're so honored to be part of this community, and a community that's willing to take on a cause as audacious as this one, so I wanted to offer, as I end, a reflection.
I think a lot more about what my father taught me. These days, I too have become a dad. I have two sons, and my wife and I just learned that she's pregnant with our third child.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
I was recently caring for a woman in Liberia who, like my wife, was in her third pregnancy. But unlike my wife, had had no prenatal care with her first two babies. She lived in an isolated community in the forest that had gone for 100 years without any health care until ... until last year when a nurse trained her neighbors to become community health workers.
So here I was, seeing this patient who was in her second trimester, and I pulled out the ultrasound to check on the baby, and she started telling us stories about her first two kids, and I had the ultrasound probe on her belly, and she just stopped mid-sentence. She turned to me and she said, "Doc, what's that sound?" It was the first time she'd ever heard her baby's heartbeat. And her eyes lit up in the same way my wife's eyes and my own eyes lit up when we heard our baby's heartbeat.
For all of human history, illness has been universal and access to care has not. But as a wise man once told me: no condition is permanent. It's time. It's time for us to go as far as it takes to change this condition together.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Filmed April 2017 at TED2017
Raj Panjabi: No one should die because they live too far from a doctor
Illness is universal — but access to care is not. Physician Raj Panjabi has a bold vision to bring health care to everyone, everywhere. With the 2017 TED Prize, Panjabi is building the Community Health Academy, a global platform that aims to modernize how community health workers learn vital skills, creating jobs along the way.
Transcript:
I want to share with you something my father taught me: no condition is permanent. It's a lesson he shared with me again and again, and I learned it to be true the hard way.
Here I am in my fourth-grade class. This is my yearbook picture taken in my class in school in Monrovia, Liberia. My parents migrated from India to West Africa in the 1970s, and I had the privilege of growing up there. I was nine years old, I loved kicking around a soccer ball, and I was a total math and science geek. I was living the kind of life that, really, any child would dream of. But no condition is permanent.
On Christmas Eve in 1989, civil war erupted in Liberia. The war started in the rural countryside, and within months, rebel armies had marched towards our hometown. My school shut down, and when the rebel armies captured the only international airport, people started panicking and fleeing. My mom came knocking one morning and said, "Raj, pack your things — we have to go." We were rushed to the center of town, and there on a tarmac, we were split into two lines. I stood with my family in one line, and we were stuffed into the cargo hatch of a rescue plane. And there on a bench, I was sitting with my heart racing. As I looked out the open hatch, I saw hundreds of Liberians in another line, children strapped to their backs. When they tried to jump in with us, I watched soldiers restrain them. They were not allowed to flee.
We were the lucky ones. We lost what we had, but we resettled in America, and as immigrants, we benefitted from the community of supporters that rallied around us. They took my family into their home, they mentored me. And they helped my dad start a clothing shop. I'd visit my father on weekends as a teenager to help him sell sneakers and jeans. And every time business would get bad, he'd remind me of that mantra: no condition is permanent. That mantra and my parents' persistence and that community of supporters made it possible for me to go through college and eventually to medical school. I'd once had my hopes crushed in a war, but because of them, I had a chance to pursue my dream to become a doctor. My condition had changed.
It had been 15 years since I escaped that airfield, but the memory of those two lines had not escaped my mind. I was a medical student in my mid-20s, and I wanted to go back to see if I could serve the people we'd left behind. But when I got back, what I found was utter destruction. The war had left us with just 51 doctors to serve a country of four million people. It would be like the city of San Francisco having just 10 doctors. So if you got sick in the city where those few doctors remain, you might stand a chance. But if you got sick in the remote, rural rainforest communities, where you could be days from the nearest clinic — I was seeing my patients die from conditions no one should die from, all because they were getting to me too late. Imagine you have a two-year-old who wakes up one morning with a fever, and you realize she could have malaria, and you know the only way to get her the medicine she needs would be to take her to the riverbed, get in a canoe, paddle to the other side and then walk for up to two days through the forest just to reach the nearest clinic.
One billion people live in the world's most remote communities, and despite the advances we've made in modern medicine and technology, our innovations are not reaching the last mile. These communities have been left behind, because they've been thought too hard to reach and too difficult to serve. Illness is universal; access to care is not. And realizing this lit a fire in my soul. No one should die because they live too far from a doctor or clinic. No condition should be permanent. And help in this case didn't come from the outside, it actually came from within. It came from the communities themselves.
Meet Musu. Way out in rural Liberia, where most girls have not had a chance to finish primary school, Musu had been persistent. At the age of 18, she completed high school, and she came back to her community. She saw that none of the children were getting treatment for the diseases they needed treatment for — deadly diseases, like malaria and pneumonia. So she signed up to be a volunteer. There are millions of volunteers like Musu in rural parts around our world, and we got to thinking — community members like Musu could actually help us solve a puzzle.
Our health care system is structured in such a way that the work of diagnosing disease and prescribing medicines is limited to a team of nurses and doctors like me. But nurses and doctors are concentrated in cities, so rural communities like Musu's have been left behind.
So we started asking some questions: What if we could reorganize the medical care system? What if we could have community members like Musu be a part or even be the center of our medical team? What if Musu could help us bring health care from clinics in cities to the doorsteps of her neighbors? Musu was 48 when I met her. And despite her amazing talent and grit, she hadn't had a paying job in 30 years. So what if technology could support her? What if we could invest in her with real training, equip her with real medicines, and have her have a real job?
Well, in 2007, I was trying to answer these questions, and my wife and I were getting married that year. We asked our relatives to forgo the wedding registry gifts and instead donate some money so we could have some start-up money to launch a nonprofit. I promise you, I'm a lot more romantic than that.
(Laughter)
We ended up raising $6,000, teamed up with some Liberians and Americans and launched a nonprofit called Last Mile Health. Our goal is to bring a health worker within reach of everyone, everywhere. We designed a three-step process — train, equip and pay — to invest more deeply in volunteers like Musu to become paraprofessionals, to become community health workers.
First we trained Musu to prevent, diagnose and treat the top 10 diseases afflicting families in her village. A nurse supervisor visited her every month to coach her. We equipped her with modern medical technology, like this $1 malaria rapid test, and put it in a backpack full of medicines like this to treat infections like pneumonia, and crucially, a smartphone, to help her track and report on epidemics. Last, we recognized the dignity in Musu's work. With the Liberian government, we created a contract, paid her and gave her the chance to have a real job. And she's amazing.
Musu has learned over 30 medical skills, from screening children for malnutrition, to assessing the cause of a child's cough with a smartphone, to supporting people with HIV and providing follow-up care to patients who've lost their limbs. Working as part of our team, working as paraprofessionals, community health workers can help ensure that a lot of what your family doctor would do reaches the places that most family doctors could never go.
One of my favorite things to do is to care for patients with community health workers. So last year I was visiting A.B., and like Musu, A.B. had had a chance to go to school. He was in middle school, in the eighth grade, when his parents died. He became an orphan and had to drop out. Last year, we hired and trained A.B. as a community health worker. And while he was making door to door house calls, he met this young boy named Prince, whose mother had had trouble breastfeeding him, and by the age of six months, Prince had started to waste away. A.B. had just been taught how to use this color-coded measuring tape that wraps around the upper arm of a child to diagnose malnutrition. A.B. noticed that Prince was in the red zone, which meant he had to be hospitalized.
So A.B. took Prince and his mother to the river, got in a canoe and paddled for four hours to get to the hospital. Later, after Prince was discharged, A.B. taught mom how to feed baby a food supplement. A few months ago, A.B. took me to visit Prince, and he's a chubby little guy.
(Laughter)
He's meeting his milestones, he's pulled himself up to a stand, and is even starting to say a few words. I'm so inspired by these community health workers. I often ask them why they do what they do, and when I asked A.B., he said, "Doc, since I dropped out of school, this is the first time I'm having a chance to hold a pen to write. My brain is getting fresh."
The stories of A.B. and Musu have taught me something fundamental about being human. Our will to serve others can actually help us transform our own conditions. I was so moved by how powerful the will to serve our neighbors can be a few years ago, when we faced a global catastrophe.
In December 2013, something happened in the rainforests across the border from us in Guinea. A toddler named Emile fell sick with vomiting, fever and diarrhea. He lived in an area where the roads were sparse and there had been massive shortages of health workers. Emile died, and a few weeks later his sister died, and a few weeks later his mother died. And this disease would spread from one community to another. And it wasn't until three months later that the world recognized this as Ebola. When every minute counted, we had already lost months, and by then the virus had spread like wildfire all across West Africa, and eventually to other parts of the world. Businesses shut down, airlines started canceling routes.
At the height of the crisis, when we were told that 1.4 million people could be infected, when we were told that most of them would die, when we had nearly lost all hope, I remember standing with a group of health workers in the rainforest where an outbreak had just happened. We were helping train and equip them to put on the masks, the gloves and the gowns that they needed to keep themselves safe from the virus while they were serving their patients. I remember the fear in their eyes. And I remember staying up at night, terrified if I'd made the right call to keep them in the field.
When Ebola threatened to bring humanity to its knees, Liberia's community health workers didn't surrender to fear. They did what they had always done: they answered the call to serve their neighbors. Community members across Liberia learned the symptoms of Ebola, teamed up with nurses and doctors to go door-to-door to find the sick and get them into care. They tracked thousands of people who had been exposed to the virus and helped break the chain of transmission. Some ten thousand community health workers risked their own lives to help hunt down this virus and stop it in its tracks.
(Applause)
Today, Ebola has come under control in West Africa, and we've learned a few things. We've learned that blind spots in rural health care can lead to hot spots of disease, and that places all of us at greater risk. We've learned that the most efficient emergency system is actually an everyday system, and that system has to reach all communities, including rural communities like Emile's. And most of all, we've learned from the courage of Liberia's community health workers that we as people are not defined by the conditions we face, no matter how hopeless they seem. We're defined by how we respond to them.
For the past 15 years, I've seen the power of this idea to transform everyday citizens into community health workers — into everyday heroes. And I've seen it play out everywhere, from the forest communities of West Africa, to the rural fishing villages of Alaska. It's true, these community health workers aren't doing neurosurgery, but they're making it possible to bring health care within reach of everyone everywhere.
So now what? Well, we know that there are still millions of people dying from preventable causes in rural communities around the world. And we know that the great majority of these deaths are happening in these 75 blue-shaded countries. What we also know is that if we trained an army of community health workers to learn even just 30 lifesaving skills, we could save the lives of nearly 30 million people by 2030. Thirty services could save 30 million lives by 2030. That's not just a blueprint — we're proving this can be done.
In Liberia, the Liberian government is training thousands of workers like A.B. and Musu after Ebola, to bring health care to every child and family in the country. And we've been honored to work with them, and are now teaming up with a number of organizations that are working across other countries to try to help them do the same thing. If we could help these countries scale, we could save millions of lives, and at the same time, we could create millions of jobs.
We simply can't do that, though, without technology. People are worried that technology is going to steal our jobs, but when it comes to community health workers, technology has actually been vital for creating jobs. Without technology — without this smartphone, without this rapid test — it would have been impossible for us to be able to employ A.B. and Musu. And I think it's time for technology to help us train, to help us train people faster and better than ever before.
As a doctor, I use technology to stay up-to-date and keep certified. I use smartphones, I use apps, I use online courses. But when A.B. wants to learn, he's got to jump back in that canoe and get to the training center. And when Musu shows up for training, her instructors are stuck using flip charts and markers. Why shouldn't they have the same access to learn as I do? If we truly want community health workers to master those lifesaving skills and even more, we've got to change this old-school model of education. Tech can truly be a game changer here. I've been in awe of the digital education revolution that the likes of Khan Academy and edX have been leading. And I've been thinking that it's time; it's time for a collision between the digital education revolution and the community health revolution.
And so, this brings me to my TED Prize wish. I wish — I wish that you would help us recruit the largest army of community health workers the world has ever known by creating the Community Health Academy, a global platform to train, connect and empower.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you.
Here's the idea: we'll create and curate the best in digital education resources. We will bring those to community health workers around the world, including A.B. and Musu. They'll get video lessons on giving kids vaccines and have online courses on spotting the next outbreak, so they're not stuck using flip charts. We'll help these countries accredit these workers, so that they're not stuck remaining an under-recognized, undervalued group, but become a renowned, empowered profession, just like nurses and doctors.
And we'll create a network of companies and entrepreneurs who've created innovations that can save lives and help them connect to workers like Musu, so she can help better serve her community. And we'll work tirelessly to persuade governments to make community health workers a cornerstone of their health care plans. We plan to test and prototype the academy in Liberia and a few other partner countries, and then we plan to take it global, including to rural North America. With the power of this platform, we believe countries can be more persuaded that a health care revolution really is possible.
My dream is that this academy will contribute to the training of hundreds of thousands of community members to help bring health care to their neighbors — the hundreds of millions of them that live in the world's most remote communities, from the forest communities of West Africa, to the fishing villages of rural Alaska; from the hilltops of Appalachia, to the mountains of Afghanistan. If this vision is aligned with yours, head to communityhealthacademy.org, and join this revolution. Let us know if you or your organization or someone you know could help us as we try to build this academy over the next year.
Now, as I look out into this room, I realize that our journeys are not self-made; they're shaped by others. And there have been so many here that have been part of this cause. We're so honored to be part of this community, and a community that's willing to take on a cause as audacious as this one, so I wanted to offer, as I end, a reflection.
I think a lot more about what my father taught me. These days, I too have become a dad. I have two sons, and my wife and I just learned that she's pregnant with our third child.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause)
I was recently caring for a woman in Liberia who, like my wife, was in her third pregnancy. But unlike my wife, had had no prenatal care with her first two babies. She lived in an isolated community in the forest that had gone for 100 years without any health care until ... until last year when a nurse trained her neighbors to become community health workers.
So here I was, seeing this patient who was in her second trimester, and I pulled out the ultrasound to check on the baby, and she started telling us stories about her first two kids, and I had the ultrasound probe on her belly, and she just stopped mid-sentence. She turned to me and she said, "Doc, what's that sound?" It was the first time she'd ever heard her baby's heartbeat. And her eyes lit up in the same way my wife's eyes and my own eyes lit up when we heard our baby's heartbeat.
For all of human history, illness has been universal and access to care has not. But as a wise man once told me: no condition is permanent. It's time. It's time for us to go as far as it takes to change this condition together.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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