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Showing posts from June, 2006

Civilization

It is a concept almost impossible to define. The word is derived from "city". But how are the two related? When humans learned to cultivate the land and became sedentary, they began to concentrate, and cities were born. Grouped in far larger numbers than the original nomadic clans, humans had to develop new social rules in order to sustain successful coexistence in this new environment. Out of necessity, these rules were quite different from the ones of those who did not live in cities. Thus, for those humans part of the city-culture, civilization -in this case defined as “living in cities” became synonymous with a higher, more evolved culture. It so happens that written history also had its birth in cities; so we can easily see the very causal connection between the concept of civilization and that of city. (As a side note, it is interesting to consider that nomadic cultures may also have the same concept, but based in a completely different word). Back to the birth of civil...

Glory

The world's biggest sports event, hosted by Germany, is commanding the attention of soccer fans accross the globe. I am no exception. Here are my predictions for the results: Semi-finals: Germany - Italy Brazil - England Final: Brazil - Germany World Cup Winner: Brazil