diumenge, 27 de febrer del 2011

Poesia sota la neu

LA PRIMERA VEGADA QUE EM VAIG ADONAR QUE TOT EREN PRIMERES VEGADES LA PRIMERA VEGADA QUE VAIG VEURE L'ESPLÈNDIDA TEMPESTA DAMUNT LA VALL LA PRIMERA VEGADA QUE ET VAIG TRIAR I VAM CÓRRER A CAMP OBERT LA PRIMERA VEGADA QUE ET VAS ALÇAR I ET VAIG DISTINGIR A LA SALA FOSCA

Qué alegria, vivir
sintiéndose vivido.
P. Salinas

Fins a buidar-se en un moment de goig;
fins a saber que pot interpretar-se
dins un temps que no cal localitzar;
fins a sentir el plaer d'aquest buidar-se
en àmbits coneguts i repetits
sense que els canvis puguin entristir-nos
(buscar amb delit el lloc on el dolor
ja superat va singularitzar-se);
fins a sentir el sentit d'aquest buidar-se,
perquè un altre l'hi dóna. Sé que vull
sortir a buscar-me i no ho faig perquè algú
m'està vivint en uns actes que em plau
endevinar, i és això l'alegria.
Prendré el telèfon i sentiré un eco,
prendré el retrat i sentiré l'aroma
i la frescor del paisatge del fons,
provaré d'explicar per què una imatge
tan diferent de mi pot explicar-me,
i em reconeixeré tocant-te els llavis.

X (Del llibre Semblança) - Feliu Formosa

dissabte, 26 de febrer del 2011

El que està passant per aquí

In Shift, U.S. Says Marriage Act Blocks Gay Rights

 

New York Times, February 23rd 2011
Charlie Savage, Sheryl Gay Stolberg

WASHINGTON — President Obama, in a striking legal and political shift, has determined that the Defense of Marriage Act — the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages — is unconstitutional, and has directed the Justice Department to stop defending the law in court, the administration said Wednesday.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the decision in a letter to members of Congress. In it, he said the administration was taking the extraordinary step of refusing to defend the law, despite having done so during Mr. Obama’s first two years in the White House.

“The president and I have concluded that classifications based on sexual orientation” should be subjected to a strict legal test intended to block unfair discrimination, Mr. Holder wrote. As a result, he said, a crucial provision of the Defense of Marriage Act “is unconstitutional.”

Conservatives denounced the shift, gay rights advocates hailed it as a watershed, and legal scholars said it could have far-reaching implications beyond the marriage law. For Mr. Obama, who opposes same-sex marriage but has said repeatedly that his views are “evolving,” there are political implications as well. Coming on the heels of his push for Congress to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law barring the military from allowing gay people to serve openly, the administration’s move seems likely to intensify the long-running cultural clash over same-sex marriage as the 2012 political campaign is heating up.

“This is a great step by the Obama administration and a tipping point for the gay rights movement that will have ripple effects in contexts beyond the Defense of Marriage Act,” said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It will reach into issues of employment discrimination, family recognition and full equality rights for lesbian and gay people.”

But some conservatives questioned Mr. Obama’s timing and accused him of trying to change the subject from spending cuts to social causes. Others portrayed the Justice Department’s abandonment of the Defense of Marriage Act as an outrageous political move that was legally unjustified.

“It is a transparent attempt to shirk the department’s duty to defend the laws passed by Congress,” Representative Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “This is the real politicization of the Justice Department — when the personal views of the president override the government’s duty to defend the law of the land.”

While the issue at hand is whether gay couples in the eight states that already legally recognize same-sex marriage may be discriminated against by the federal government, the administration’s decision raised anew the more fundamental question of whether same-sex couples should have a right to marry.

Mr. Obama takes a nuanced position on same-sex marriage, and the White House was careful to say on Wednesday that his position on that issue — he favors civil unions — remains unchanged. Many advocates of same-sex marriage, though, perceived the administration’s new legal stance as a signal that Mr. Obama would soon embrace their cause.

Polls show the public is broadly supportive of equal rights for gay people — with the exception of the right to marry. Nearly 90 percent of Americans favor equality of opportunity in the workplace, and more than 60 percent favored overturning “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the public remains evenly divided on same-sex marriage.

Tobias B. Wolff, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who has advised Mr. Obama on gay rights issues, said Wednesday’s decision may have bought the president some time with gay rights leaders, many of whom have been deeply critical of his position on the marriage issue.
“He has said that he has been struggling with the issue, and I think he has earned a certain benefit of the doubt,” Mr. Wolff said.

But the move also sharpened criticism of Mr. Obama from the right. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the shift was “clearly based more on politics than the law.”
While Mr. Obama has called for Congress to repeal the marriage law, in court his administration has supported the constitutional right of Congress to enact such a measure. But his legal team was forced to take a second look at the sustainability of that position because of two recent lawsuits challenging the statute. The Justice Department must file responses to both suits by March 11.

For technical reasons, it would have been far more difficult — both legally and politically — for the administration to keep arguing that the marriage law is constitutional in these new lawsuits. To assert that gay people do not qualify for extra legal protection against official discrimination, legal specialists say, the Justice Department would most likely have had to conclude that they have not been historically stigmatized and can change their orientation.

The development floored Edith S. Windsor, an 81-year-old widow who filed one of the two new lawsuits in New York. Ms. Windsor is seeking the return of about $360,000 in estate taxes she had to pay because the federal government did not recognize their marriage when her wife died two years ago. The couple married in Toronto.

“It’s almost overwhelming,” Ms. Windsor said in an interview. “I don’t know what it means in terms of what follows. But the very fact that the president and the Department of Justice are making such a statement is mind-blowing to anybody gay or anybody who is related to anybody gay. I think it removes a great deal of the stigma. It’s just great.” 


Altres articles interessants:

Topics New York Times: Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships

dimarts, 22 de febrer del 2011

L'oblit

Porque el recuerdo
es la pena de sí mismo.
P. Salinas
 
Si em busco en el record és per la pena
d'un oblit que em fa por quan alço els ulls
com aquell que es desperta a punt d'alba
(entre l'angoixa i les expectactives)
després de dorimir poc i sent les hores
properes de la nit que queda enrere
com un temps que costés de situar,
com un vers que busqués el món extern,
i busco altra vegada els teus ulls plens
de tot allò que pot fer-me divers
pels records sense pena. I aquest gest
és allò que la vida té de fàcil.
¿Se'm perden energies amagades
en aquest recordar que vol incloure
l'imaginar? ¿Hi ha pena en el futur
o bé el goig més sublim, el de l'ignot?
La música que torna a acompanyar-nos
és el marc de la variació,
com altres cops, que em vénen al record
i que eren diferents, com ho és la música.
Això em permet brindar-te un altre jo
sense pena de mi. Em reconcilio
amb la música, amb tu, amb el vers, amb mi.

III (Del llibre Semblança) - Feliu Formosa

diumenge, 20 de febrer del 2011

Fotografia

Once upon a time we felt on top of the world.

dimecres, 16 de febrer del 2011

El secret

For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.

The Brothers Karamazov (The Grand Inquisitor), Fiodor Dostoievski

diumenge, 6 de febrer del 2011

Amor i independència

Through her half-closed eyelids she watched Terence lying back in his chair, and she smiled as she saw how big his mouth was, and his chin so small, and his nose curved like a switchback with a knob at the end. Naturally, looking like that he was lazy, and ambitious, and full of moods and faults. She remembered their quarrels, and in particular how they had been quarrelling about Helen that very afternoon, and she thought how often they would quarrel in the thirty, or forty, or fifty years in which they would be living in the same house together, catching trains together, and getting annoyed because they were so different. But all this was superficial, and had nothing to do with the life that went on beneath the eyes and the mouth and the chin, for that life was independent of her, and independent of everything else. So too, although she was going to marry him and live with him for thirty, or forty, or fifty years, and to quarrel, and to be so close to him, she was independent of him; she was independent of everything else. Nevertheless, as St. John said, it was love that made her understand this, for she had never felt this independence, this calm, and this certainty until she fell in love with him, and perhaps this too was love. She wanted nothing else.

The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf

divendres, 4 de febrer del 2011

Voluntat de poder

Poder sobre què?