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About what I did on Saturday, 19th of July 2008


Also called “Emo day”.

So I dusted off the blog with a post about a day. Here’s another one.

I spent the whole of Saturday, 19th of July sitting at my computer.

2:40 - 8:50 PM: Refresh the NBC page over 60 times? That and actually reading the quickhit updates on the US Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Olympic selection camp. And read forum posts. And chat with wonderful Gymworlders about it.
9:00 - 01:00? AM: Walk my avatars for the sake of it at Relay for Life. ON SECOND LIFE. And take snapshots.

No much room for social interaction, huh?

So it’s been one of the most emotional days for me this summer.

Leaving any gymnastics fanatism aside, the experience of actually knowing what was going on in the selection camp every minute was quite ground-shattering for me. The whole gymnastics community found out perhaps 30 seconds after the routine of a girl was over that that was it - her Olympic dream was over. We found out the first morning even before the competition that another girl was done, too… breaking her leg a couple of hours before the second most important competition of her life. I hate NBC for its yellow broadcasting and its lack of respect towards the grief of others, but I have to admit I give kudos to them for the quickhits. http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/news/newsid=152642.html

The US WAG team is great. They will be a real threat for the Chinese dreams of Team gold. Still, it is impossible (or at least it is for me) to feel bad for these girls, you know? These are girls who are my age or younger and who have spent the last ten years of their lives going everyday to a gym. They go through injuries, lack of a normal social life, sometimes though lack of a proper formal education, to be the world’s best - and it was stopped by a fracture, and by two falls in uneven bars routines. Two falls out of other great seventeen routines at least in this year.

These children don’t go to war, go through starvation (at least out of lack of food in their country) or have no access to clean water. But, honestly, I can only imagine what is going on in their minds.

The second part of the day - Relay for Life. I didn’t attend the event earlier because I was, as you now know, tuned to see who’d make it in. Also, I didn’t consider it a priority because the RFL events I had attended before didn’t really make it for me, you know? I didn’t find myself there. It was very hard to visualise how buying a T-shirt would really liberate me from the guilt of not going beyond a purchase to do actually do something about cancer.

I am not even sure if my effort counted as I crashed throughout the about four hours I was at it, but it was something impressive to attend. I don’t think there is a point in writing more about it. I’ll just say that seeing the products of the work of months (not mine, by the way), the attendance and the personal side was very moving. It was moving to pass by donation boxes devoted to someone lost to cancer, or to builds made to make the walk nicer for people, or avatars of all kinds carrying flags and tags with names of people they lost.

It is pretty sad. It really is. I don’t think the essence of it is cheerful, despite what the RFL page says. What I do think, though, is that it is heart-warming to see how something so painful is able to unite masses.

Especially when those in the mass will never meet offline.

I will upload some of the snapshots I took to www.flickr.com/photos/faeriedevilish .
Here’s the story of the woman to whom I dedicated the donations.


July 20, 2008 | 3:07 AM Comments  0 comments

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About Justice on its day
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

“In Justice, all virtues are contained”
-Socrates

Whenever I look at calendars of “Day of the - “ celebrations, there are few days I feel strongly about, truth be told. Today precisely is one of those. If I may be honest, it is on the top, along with the International Day of Dance :D

So this is my 4th attempt to write this precise blog post.

These last weeks, for some unexplained reason, I have been questioning the role of activism and all these human rights quest more than ever. This post is an attempt to keep track of these feelings in four years, when I have graduated from philosophy course.

Conversations with random crazy friend
I have a random crazy friend, as everyone does, with who I tend to discuss issues of philosophical or political interest. He’s a philosophy student as well, although older and lives in NY. Y’know, one of those brother-like people.
The reason why I mention him is that 1) he’s drop dead smart, 2) he’s drop dead well-read, and 3) he’s anti-activism, anti-human rights, and anti-a lot of those things that most of us take for granted.
What troubles me is that he’s not one of those typical jerks or emo kids who have nothing to do and therefore just rant and say the system is the suxx0rz. He has more reasons for believing in what he does than almost everyone I know.

TakingITGlobal discussions (which are the reason why I am posting this on TIG as well)
I can’t say I have real friends on there that I didn’t meet outside TIG, so this is not an issue of closeness.
I have discussed random human rights issues there with people from different countries (because I don’t know anything that is more international than TIG, damn it. Not even YouTube). These are people who are generally over 18, and who obviously have access to computers. A lot of their profiles mention high education in social science.
So why is this relevant? Because a lot of them believe that, for example, human rights are redundant and unfair; that women belong at home (literally), and that people of certain religions should not be punished for ignoring human rights papers.

Unfortunate activism
It has become a common practice to see activism in all its forms (internet propaganda, tree-huggers, their presence in mass media) simply corrupt its point. During these last weeks I have seen baseless attacks towards the people who have a base to believe human rights are arbitrary, mocking towards people whose opinions match the one recognized as “retrograde”, the business of “non-profits”... and, above all, the blind acceptation of what is internationally recognized as “justice”.


The outcome of the addition of the three parts is not as pessimistic as it may sound. I have not decided to quit and become a fashion designer or anything like that, but my admiration for activism has indeed downgraded.

What if we’re wrong? What if human rights have indeed no real moral basis and are just the easy agreement of the countries that wrote the Declaration? What if our list of human universals is not as accurate as we thought it was? What if tradition pwns or modern ways? What if our paternalist attitude is wrong, and proselitism for these causes damages more than its absence?

What if our human justice does not match Justice?

I hope that the three people who read this post (I tell you I’m not popular on the netz) will reconsider Justice. I think this day is a good opportunity to rate our conviction. I hope these four years clarify the path for me.

Btw, I dusted off the blog because this post ( http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2008/07/happy-internati.html ) led me to.



July 17, 2008 | 1:08 PM Comments  0 comments



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