In Football, or soccer as called in the US, the FIFA World Cup which holds every 4 years is the biggest tournament world over. It kicks off on the continent of Africa, South Africa to be precise. Viewership of the past mundial shows it is the biggest sports gathering after the Olympics and some matches actually return the highest single viewership for any sports event.

So it’s a big thing taking place in …cities South Africa between the 10^th of June and the 11^th of July 2010.

32 countries have qualified after rigorous qualification matches within their various continents going through different formats.  The participating countries are grouped as follows:

Africa 6, Europe 13, Asia & Middle East 4, Oceania 1, North America 3 and South America 5

Group A. South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay & France

Group A involving the hosts South Africa looks a very fair group for all, with only France having an array of soccer stars so can be said to have an edge. But the French had a tough qualifying campaign, having to go through the playoffs and the controversial Thiery Henry’s handball assist that ended the journey for the Irish. The South Africans would be playing with a lot of passion and determination in front of their home fans and it would be very difficult to defeat. The team has been together for a few years now and should exhibit a solid team play but would this be enough? For Mexico who just lost a friendly to England at Wembley, they come to the mundial with a lot of enthusiasm. I am sure their hopes lie in the fact that the team keeps improving per time, it’s a blend of old and youth and do understand themselves very well.  Uruguay would find it extremely tough coming out of this group even with their captain the former Manchester United player, Diego Forlan who is a very technical and clinical finisher. Would he be enough to motivate his colleagues? Time will tell

Prediction:

France and Mexico

Group B. Argentina, Nigeria, Korea Republic (South Korea) & Greece

I am a bit biased here as a Nigerian as I want my country to advance to the next round although preparation can be said to be non-existent in the fact that the ‘new’ manager has just about 3 weeks to tinker with the team before the first match. The good side however is the fact that he has retained the bulk of the team he met on ground which means he would only need to instill his own tactics and way of play within a group that already understand each other. All the team needs is a draw in the first game against Argentina. Talking about Argentina, they are surely clear favorites; anyway they are used to being classified as such. With the current world footballer of the year Lionel Messi, Milito of newly crowned European Champions League winners Inter Milan, Liverpool’s Mascerano, Tevez, Real Madrid’s slippery Higuian and a host of other world class talents, you will be kidding yourself to dismiss them in one go. But anything is possible in football; they lost out in the first round in 2002 despite parading the likes of Batistuta, a legend in Florence. These boys of a football great Maradona are in tip top shape and are sure ready to thrash opponents but would this happen? Where would I place Greece and South Korea but in a high place of respect as both teams are very technical and disciplined. The Greeks showed their team work stuff to win the European championships 2004 surprising all and sundry and they still have the same Manager today. For the South Koreans, they will rely on their quick and direct play and are being led by J Sung Park, a darling at Old Traford, Manchester.

Prediction:

Argentina and Nigeria

Group C. England, USA, Algeria & Slovenia

It is only the second place up for grabs in this group as England are having the best shot at winning the World Cup since 1990 semi-finals placing. They come in with a very balanced team in all departments having a very solid spine. They have Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard /Frank Lampard, John Terry/Rio Ferdinand and David James or Robert Green. The USA has an effective team that showed what they can do at the last FIFA Confederations Cup defeating the favorites Spain. I actually do not see the Algerians coming up with anything spectacular apart from being decent. For the Slovenians they will need all the luck in the world.

Prediction

England and USA

Group D. Germany, Australia, Serbia & Ghana

Another group where I do not expect any surprise, because I don’t think the Australians nor do I think the Ghanaians have what it takes to go past Germany and Serbia.  Ghana just announced that their biggest talent in a decade, Chelsea’s Micheal Essien would be missing; this will cost them a lot. Australia have been very decent and disciplined of late and this present crop are the ones to do it except that they face an ever dedicated German machine and enthusiastic Serbians

Prediction:

Germany and Serbia

Group E. Netherlands, Denmark, Japan & Cameroon

This is a group with highly technical footballing countries, playing the Scandinavians is never easy. They are all known for their organizational abilities. But the Danish guys will find it tough with Cameroon and Japan. The Japanese are enjoying a very settled team with great ambitions and it is sure they are ready to pounce on any opportunity offered by fellow Group E rivals. With a team filled with Sniejder, Ajen Robben, De Jong are ever so total in their display, it would be Netherlands fault if they do not qualify from this group. Cameroon have a huge task ahead of them. They are fond of featuring veterans and this may be their undoing, except they don’t would they make it to the second round. Do I stick out my neck for the Japanese, yes I do. Why? They have had a decent run in and their local league has really stabilized to give them a lot of confidence coming into this World Cup. Or maybe I just want some surprises to spice up the competition

Prediction:

Netherlands and Japan

Group F. Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand & Slovakia

Looks the defending Champions are not in the league they were 4 years ago as most of their players are not exhibiting the standards they are known for likewise coming together as a National side has not shown anything different. It’s a plus they have a relatively okay group with no disrespect to other members of this group. The Paraguayans started the South American qualifiers on a high tempo but they seem to be struggling at the crucial time. Slovakia did the giant killing on Russia so must be very confident but the New Zealanders I think are just very happy to be here.

Prediction:

Italy and Slovakia

Group G. Brazil, DPR Korea, Cote D’Voire & Portugal

Toughest call for me, this group would be extremely close looking at the quality of stars represented here. The DPR Korea should be prepared to enjoy themselves out there as the other three countries would look at their match ups as possibilities of taking goals advantage but I warn do not take any country for granted. Brazil, the ‘biggest’ nation in the world of football would find it tough, have never failed to advance as long as I can remember but should not be thinking of picking all the points as usual. Cote D Voire are tipped as the best African Nation going into this tournament but the appointment of sacked former England and Mexico manager, the Swede Goran Ericsson has put doubt in a lot of peoples minds. Ronaldo in the Portuguese side is a huge asset but have they got it right as a team? Would they not show boat having a lot of skillful players? This is tough to call. Brazil remain tournament favorites

Prediction

Brazil and Cote D Voire

Group H. Spain, Chile, Switzerland & Honduras

The European champions piggy bank on the form of the Spanish club side Barcelona to display one of the best football styles ever played in the game. They are the 3^rd of the favorites up there with England and Brazil in no particular order. They need Xavi Hernandez, Fernando Torres and Andre Iniesta to be fit and going. I expect a comfortable group matches for them and do expect Honduras to spring a surprise on Chile and Switzerland. The Swiss are always very effective and could pose a challenge. For the Chileans they hardly ever rise to their potential and remain in the shadow of other top South American countries. Would they prove themselves capable this time?

Prediction

Spain and Honduras

You just have to be part of this excitement wave that will hold over 40% of the world’s population a month long. For product sponsors this is definitely time to show case your brand to the largest audience possible.

And for fans following their dear nations and preferences, I advise we guard our hearts as anything is possible.

India is the world’s seventh largest consumer of electricity and is set to overtake countries like Canada and Germany as its economy grows. Last year GDP grew 6.5%, the 13^th fastest in the world according to the CIA factbook. But this growth comes at a cost. Take for example, the village of Khamaria in the state of Chhattisgarh in eastern India.

On the one hand are villagers who only know an agrarian way of life, and on the other is Jindal Steel & Power, one of India’s luminary companies, which, through its steel plant, coalmines and a 1000MW thermal power plant is feeding the country’s energy and industrial demands. Naveen Jindal, the company’s executive chairman and a Member of Parliament, is adding on a $2.4 billion, 2400MW coal-fired power plant in the same region. (His mother, Savitri, chairs the O.P. Jindal group and is ranked the 44th richest billionaire by Forbes with an estimated net worth of $12.2 billion.)

While the Jindals rake in their billions, I saw firsthand the devastation wreaked on the area. Driving through this thickly forested area, the green gives way to black – the soot on the leaves and shrubs is like rank topsoil.

Residents say that when they voiced their protest in a sanctioned public forum, they were beaten by police; some hospitalized.

Two farmers I spoke with – Krishna Lal Sao and Raghunath Choudhary – collectively lost 7.5 acres that was the source of their livelihood for the expansion of this power plant. Years of filing petitions with the courts or the police have resulted in nothing but heartache. Sao has now taken a loan and started a stationery store to send his four kids to school while Choudhary, who is forced to farm someone else’s land, blames both the suicide of his younger son and his wife’s recent fatal heart attack on stressful circumstances caused by Jindal.

To be fair to the company, I asked if this clash (one of several across the country between not just Jindal, but other companies as well) was a part of the transition from an agragrian to an industrial economy and if the company could help ease the transition either through better compensation (which is much below the market rate at present) or via job training that is more than someone just sweeping floors. But Naveen Jindal responded,“There is some initial resistance as villagers are obviously aspiring to obtain maximum prices for their land and other benefits.”

It doesn’t look like this friction will be over any time soon. Shahid Hasan, associate director at the The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi says that while the government is in process of adding on more electricity generation capacity, the demand continues to grow and will outstrip the production. “There is no end to this,” he says.

To read more:

“India’s Dirty War: A violent struggle over resource rich land is pitting billionaires against Maoists. Thousands of villagers have been killed and displaced”

“Meantime, In Goa: The ugly side of mining”

“Campus Politics”

Nowadays, sustainability in the business environment must be seen as an opportunity for companies. These companies must get involved inside the economic, social and environmental trends offering opportunities through:

• Business management innovation and efficiency.
• Commitment and participation inside the social issues that affect our end markets.
• Implement a responsible environmental management as part of the the business strategy

GrupoNueva is an investment holding company, specialized in the business of forestry and wood derivatives, creating sustainable value for its stakeholders through its triple bottom line approach.

GrupoNueva is the controlling shareholder of the multinational corporation Masisa S.A., one of the leading companies in Latin America in the wood boards for furniture and interior architecture business, who has 12 industrial complexes in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico, and more than 242 thousand hectares of planted forest in the region.

MASISA is committed to managing its business in a sustainable way, incorporating social and environmental variables as an integral part of its business strategy. The Company’s strong commitment to sustainable development has led to its market differentiation due to its responsible management of social and environmental issues.

External certifications and the use of the Sustainability Scorecard (SSC), which is the application of the Balanced Scorecard tool to the Triple Bottom Line approach, enable us to manage and systematically integrate to the business strategy the social and environmental issues.

MASISA’s road to leadership is the path it follows to be leader of sustainable development in the region. The path starts with the “basic management level,” i.e., make sure that the Company complies with legislation in the countries where it operates and therefore obtain government authorization to operate, but more important, Masisa secures and maintains a social license to operate based on dialogue and consultation with its stakeholders, in consistency with its Triple Bottom line culture.

This leadership model also entails identifying operating risks and impacts, detecting future trends, and seeking business opportunities to contribute resolving social or environmental problems.

The last stage of Masisa’s sustainability strategy is to attain a leading position within this industry on two issues that impact its business: Climate Change and Inclusive Business.

About Inclusive Business, MASISA seeks to promote businesses that offer opportunities to improve the quality of life of low-income sectors and that, in turn, improve the Company’s profitability.

According to Masisa`s core business, the company has decided to implement an ambitious project to develop small and medium size carpenters, improving their skills, at the same time that create a new direct relationship with their customers .

Nowadays, following the trends of sustainability in the world, MASISA gave another step ahead and started working with a  green building approach, offering ecological products and services that improve life quality for millions of consumers promoting and more energy efficient and environmentally friendly way of constructing.

In summary, the new role beyond the traditional is that companies should be seen as part of the solution to the problems facing society, and not just as part of the problem, using their capabilities and resources. The leading companies in the world are already doing!

Whether you believe global warming is happening or not, global warming solutions make sense.  The developed world is transitioning from a carbon-fuel economy towards a renewable-energy economy.  Consumer preferences, the inevitable regulation of CO², the innovation of efficiency technologies, and the production of cheap renewable energy are all fueling this transition.  As always, firms and industries willing and able to adapt to the changing economic environment will remain competitive; firms and industries unable or unwilling to adapt will fold.

While global warming is often the focal point of energy and environmental politics, peak oil is startlingly left out of the conversation.  Peak oil scares me because it’s deleterious effects will be felt in my lifetime.  Oil industry executives, petro-geologists, and Saudi Princes agree: The world’s supply of cheap oil is running out. Sometime in the next two decades (if not already), world oil production will begin a slow, steady, and terminal decline.  Some predict demand will surpass supply as early as 2015.  When this happens, the dominos will begin to fall.

Our complete dependence on an uninterrupted supply of cheap oil cannot be overstated.   Our food supply is grown with petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, planted and harvested with heavy machinery, and then transported thousands of miles in trucks.  Rising oil prices mean rising food prices.  Any extended interruption in the supply of oil means an interruption in the food supply.  Since grocery stores turn over their inventory every three days, we are—as one commentator stated—“nine meals from anarchy.”

The extraction of coal, the manufacture of medicine, our national defense, and our transportation systems all depend completely on the uninterrupted supply of cheap oil.  Still, we do nothing to curb demand despite knowing supplies are running out.  If we continue failing to act, we will leave our children a world broken of constant scarcity and war.  Or, we can profit by implementing solutions.  Now as always, the choice is ours.

Tim Mahon is seeking a publisher for Jesus Wants US to Stop Global Warming.  He blogs at www.JesusConserves.org

Theatre makes the past present, alive at the moment that you are witnessing it. The characters as well as the texts, poems and songs breathe with new life, and so a new future opens up for them. I am interested in creating theatre that is rooted in little-known or appreciated cultures of the East, giving voice to them. I have made theatre pieces about a modernist theatre in Kyiv in the 1920s, ancient Siberian ghost stories and Kyrgyz epics. Each of these theatre pieces opened a new world for me, the other artists involved and our audiences.

I am the artistic director of Yara Arts Group, a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in the East Village in New York. We create original theatre pieces in rehearsal by bringing together fragments of songs, stories and chants. At the core of every piece is a poem that sets the piece in motion. Since 1990 we have created 20 original theatre pieces that have premiered in New York, and are usually collaborations with artists from the other side of the world. Our productions feature traditional music, but are essentially contemporary pieces. Performed in a combination of languages, they are completely accessible to American audiences.

The first time I recorded songs in villages was in the Aga Buryat Region of Siberia. I soon learned that the older women in a community are usually the best source of songs, stories and knowledge about a traditional society. We created such pieces as “Flight of the White Bird” based on songs we heard from grandmothers in Aga, while “Circle” was based on songs and stories from the Ust-Orda Buryat Region on the other side of Lake Baikal.

Eventually, I also recorded songs in Ukrainian villages to create “Song Tree,” “Koliada: Twelve Dishes” and “Still the River Flows.”

In Central Asia I worked on two theatre pieces we made out of the rich Kyrgyz epic tradition. “Janyl Myrza” was a true story about a 17^th century woman warrior from the Celestial Mountains. The heroine was, however, strangely silent in the 70 page epic about her. We traveled to villages where the story took place to record women’s laments and songs in order to give her a voice.

This March I will be working in Kyiv on a new theatre piece with Ukrainian singer Nina Matvienko and her daughter Tonia, as well as Kyrgyz artists Kenzhegul Satybaldieva, Ainura Kachkynbek kyzy and Nurbek Serkebaev. “Scythian Stones” constructs parallel journeys for two young women from village and nomadic traditional life into the city. Their separate journeys become epic descents into the Great Below –the modern global desert where songs, skills and languages disappear, leaving behind only mute markers like the Scythian Stones found today throughout the grasslands of Ukraine and Central Asia.

“Scythian Stones” will have a workshop production in Kyiv on March 26, 2010 www.brama.com/yara Then we will travel to New York to rehearse the piece here, adding members of our company. “Scythian Stones”  opens April 17^th and plays Thursdays –Saturdays at 8PM, plus Sundays at 2:30 till May 2^nd at La MaMa Experimental Theatre, 74 East 4^th St, in New York. www.lamama.org

They are regular women who do not wait for a government program, crisis or news-breaking story to highlight issues in their communities. (And they are, statistics tell us, more often women than men.) They see a need, and they have the courage and conviction to act. Their hands-on experience gives them the credibility to increase awareness, guide decisions, and create impact.

I am one of those women.  I believe deeply that it is my responsibility to help the community in which I live and to advance the common good. And I am not alone.

Some who share this commitment seek community in their neighborhood, some in their town, some in their country and some in the wider world.  The commitment might derive from a different belief system than mine, but it is a shared conviction.

The “new” civic leaders come to their roles by different avenues.  Mine happens to be The Junior League of Monmouth County, which has been a continual inspiration for me for 33 years. I’ve seen my League address such important problems as elder abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, AIDS, teen pregnancy, and illiteracy.  Frequently, these were issues that were unmet or underserved in our community – lacking attention or resources.

Inspiration to aspire to civic leadership can come from many sources.  Mine was a grammar school trip to a county nursing home to sing Christmas carols and visit with the patients.  I realized that there were great needs in my community – that not only were there people suffering who had little means to care for themselves, but that I could do something to help them, if only for a day.

I spent most of my school years in all-women environments and knew the potential and power women have to make a difference.  When I was in my mid-20’s, I joined The Junior League to set down roots in the community where we had bought a new home and were expecting our second child.  My mother recommended I join this group of women to meet people and become involved in my community.  Of course, my mother was right as I came to know women whom, to this day, I highly regard.

I did not realize it at that time, but, by joining The Junior League, I was beginning my journey as a civic leader.  During my first two years with The League, I volunteered for a project in collaboration with the Monmouth County Park System where I participated in a Speakers Bureau focused on the preservation of open space.  The County was renowned for its agricultural and horse farms which developers were beginning to swallow up.  There was a movement to build public awareness about the negative impact of that development and The League’s efforts in helping the community eventually led to the establishment the Monmouth Conservation Foundation.

Another fulfilling project included my participation in The League’s work with Family & Children’s Service, which has been designated by the State of New Jersey as the agency to deal with elder abuse in Monmouth County.  I was a friendly visitor to one of their clients every other week once her situation was stabilized.  The most rewarding work I have done for my League has been as a member of New Jersey Junior Leagues State Public Affairs Committee (SPAC), which takes action on specific state and federal issues on behalf of the eight New Jersey Junior Leagues.  We concentrate on issues primarily impacting women and girls such as domestic violence, childproof handguns, human trafficking, cord blood donations, and most recently, childhood obesity in conjunction with the AJLI program, Kids in The Kitchen.

Any woman who shares the mission for developing women’s potential for civic leadership can be part of The Junior League.  All they need to do is visit The Association of Junior Leagues International Inc.’s (AJLI) website and identify The League closest to their location.  Members focus on the issues that impact their communities so those will vary from League to League.  They also have flexibility in how much time they can volunteer for projects.  When I was a new member, my children were young and I devoted as much time as I could to The League’s projects that mattered the most.  I also attended formal training sessions given by The League that help women develop the skills to create greater impact in their communities and inspire civic leadership. Eventually I accepted chair positions of committees and projects and served as President of The Junior League of Monmouth County in 1989.

When I was President of my League, I had the opportunity to meet and work with women from across our 293 Leagues in four countries which inspired me to continue that work by applying for volunteer positions within our international Association. After serving in several positions with AJLI, I applied for the position of AJLI President-Elect and was elected by the Leagues in the spring of 2009.  I will succeed to President for 2010 – 2012 on June 1^st of this year.  I am truly excited about my new position, which is equivalent of being Chair of the Board, because in addition to promoting our mission among all The Leagues, I will continue my hands-on volunteer work.  As part of a non-profit, I am not compensated monetarily as a member of the Board, but my compensation is the results that we achieve when helping our communities and the legions of women who make it happen.

I believe deeply in the mission to develop the potential of women to improve their communities.  It is completely aligned with my personal values and beliefs.  My membership has provided me the opportunity to live exactly what I believe, to grow and learn, and to make enduring friendships with a wide range of wonderful women who share the same commitment to bettering our communities.  The Leagues have an outstanding history of addressing unmet needs in communities in four countries.  We are also privileged to have renowned members as role models, including Eleanor Roosevelt; selected Women Airport Service Pilots (WASPs) who were recently recognized by the U.S. Congress; Sandra Day O’Connor; and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

My goal is to continue to lead the organization through this exciting period of change and renewal so that we can energize a new generation of women, like my daughter, in our efforts to improve communities.

Can an individual make a difference?  Absolutely.  But you will never know until you try. Welcome, civic leader!

Delly Beekman is the incoming president of The Association of Junior Leagues International Inc.  Founded in 1901 by New Yorker, Mary Harriman, the Junior Leagues are charitable nonprofit organizations of women, developed as civic leaders, creating demonstrable community impact. Today, The Association of Junior Leagues International Inc. (AJLI) is comprised of more than 160,000 women in 293 Junior Leagues throughout Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.  Together, they constitute one of the largest, most effective volunteer organizations in the world.  For more information please visit www.ajli.org.

As an art museum director, I reflect on how science museums, zoos and botanical gardens have been so much more effective at adapting to 21st century needs and attracting diverse audiences. Art museums in the United States have a tough challenge in this respect, as the arts are less and less a funding priority in schools. From a very early age, the message tends to be that art does not quite mesh with life as do math, language and sports. The arts are also competing these days with endlessly-increasing entertainment and social offerings. Despite and maybe even because of all this, museums are placing more efforts than ever on attracting new audiences; and methods to do so have become quite creative.

Museums today, are assuming outreach roles way beyond traditional ones. The definition of diversity has expanded beyond the “multi-culti” 1980s socio-economic and cultural model. Approaches have widened with activities that stretch across disciplines and interests: MoMa offers yoga classes in their galleries; and Queens Museumof Art has cooking workshops, for example. The Bass Museum of Art (which I manage) has a jazz series and monthly Sunday classical concerts.

In fact, museums are following what leading art fairs so effectively set into motion: embracing lifestyle and social activities to attract young professionals, socialites, and the general public to its doors with happy hours, parties, programs for seniors and wine-tasting events. Finally, museum cafes are being upgraded and museum restaurants are becoming, more and more, destinations in their own right (see January 29, 2010 New York Times article: “After the Putti, the Baby Calamari”).

Partnerships have become essential and very effective in accessing diverse audiences. Art museums collaborate with nearby public schools, for example, not only to offer students guided visits, but also through in-school initiatives such as museum-led hands-on workshops, teacher training and artists’ visits.

The Bass Museum initiated IDEA@theBass, an in-school program in collaboration with Stanford University, which uses art as a catalyst to promote critical thinking skills. In Spring 2010, this program will enter all six Miami Beach public schools (for now). It will engage school children with repeat experiences with art and creativity; and most importantly, it will reach each and every student from K-3rd grade. Museums also partner with numerous other cultural organizations, local governments and social service agencies to seek new communities.

Art museums, yet, still do need to go back to the museums of science, botanical gardens and zoos to observe and learn more about how to communicate. The other day, a very smart person recommended we look for new ideas beyond museums; to street fairs, malls and online communities. Another smart person, someone on my board in fact, is very conscious of and always stresses the importance of bilingual exhibition labels, pod casts and well-trained docents.

Thinking back on Whoopi Goldberg and her explanation of the big bang, a lot can be done by museums simply in the area of “delivery”. Once we have a visitor at our door, let’s work on making the museum-visiting experience just plain fun.

Silvia Karman Cubina
Executive Director and Chief Curator
Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach

An independent curator since 1997, Cubina was most recently the director of The Moore Space, Miami, from 2002-2008. In the past, she held the position of Adjunct Curator at inova, the Institute of Visual Arts; University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; and positions at The Mexican Museum in San Francisco and the Cuban Museum of Art in Miami. At The Moore Space, Cubina organized exhibition projects with artists such as: Allora & Calzadlla, Carlos Amorales, John Bock, Sean Dack, Jeppe Hein, Tracey + The Plastics, Jonathan Monk, Aida Ruilova, Hernan Bas, Jim Lambie, Patty Chang, Joan Jonas, Yang Fudong, and numerous group exhibitions. In 2007, she worked on French Kissing in the USA, a group exhibition that takes its title from a 1986 hit song by Blondie, to present the emerging scene of French artists. Independently, Cubina has worked on exhibitions such as None of the Above: Contemporary Work by Puerto Rican Artists at Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; Quirky, Odd and Out of Sorts at MACLA, San Jose, CA; Landmark/Allora & Calzadilla at the Escuela de Artes Plasticas in San Juan; Quisqueya Henríquez; Habitat en Tránsito/Piñones (In-Situ), Javier Cambre’s project for the 2002 Bienal Exhibition of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Pepón Osorio: Door to Door at Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in San Juan; Arte del Nuevo Medio: Doce Propuestas Electrónicas at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico; and she was the Puerto Rico commissioner to the 1997 Bienal de Sao Paolo. Cubina has participated in Project Rooms at ARCO and ArtMiami, has lectured extensively and participated in numerous grant panels and award selection committees, most recently as a juror to the Guggenheim Museum’s Hugo Boss Award for 2006. In 2007, she was a finalist for the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement and will participate in the Center for Curatorial Leadership program.

I am Gualti, a young artist originally from Padua. I moved to Venice in September of 1998 to inaugurate my atelier-galleria following a long, tortuous, and sensitive evolution. I am self-taught, a “material experimenter”, an inventor of decorative forms for the body, who abandoned myself to the creativity that passionately consumes my entire existence. Since childhood, my extreme sensitivity has left me in awe when faced with the grandeur of Nature.  The places of my adolescence strongly influenced me:  I admired small rivulets of water tripping along in myriad kaleidoscopic reflections, observed the sinuous dance of silvery algae gracefully suspended in that mysterious crystalline surface while their harmonious movement would work an almost hypnotic spell. I examined minutely the delicate buds of plants, scrutinized every detail of tiny teeming creatures and their interaction with the physical environment around them. The world behind the superficiality of reality enchants me…I am particularly attracted to everything that is beneath the surface: small fossils, twigs, stones, and above all roots…tangled, woody, branched, fibrous, tubers, sometimes aerial or creeping…I am fascinated by small anthropomorphic apparatus and their organic forms…

In each of my jewels I seek “the sense of lightness”, using particularly unusual materials, assembled and fused with an extraordinary vision, always experimenting in a new, magical, and unique idiom…

They are jewels and ornaments in a rainbow spectrum, apparently fragile or difficult to wear…but in reality as supple and lightweight as feathers. They are extensions of life…to be savoured every instant of every day, and can be touched and worn casually, but certainly without going unobserved…Glassy hearts pulsating with light like watery mirrors, from which transparent filaments and iridescent tips reach out – offshoots of light.Bracelets…rings…earrings…collars…headpieces…the entire body is willingly captured, dressed, and transformed by these organic sculpture-jewels that I define as extensions of the body.
They are indefinable constructions, timeless in alternating lights, shadows, colours, volumes, asymmetries, and movement…My universe continues with the creation of my stoles… : silks…organza… taffetas,…and anything else that can be wrapped around the body like a cocoon…Original plissé of iridescent fabrics crumples surprisingly, enhanced by voluminous sinuous hems that form spirals evoking diaphanous creatures of unexplored abysses….Every creation is unique – absolutely original.

I transform my deepest emotions, my dreams, fantasies, and desires into ornaments for the body and soul…a sort of perpetual voyage in time and space, where there is no beginning and no end, but rather a continual evolution that seeks and affirms its “sensations”.

At the moment, I am involved in my first theatrical project. I designed two costumes and jewels to complement them for the glorious singer Romina Salvadori, who is performing in the latest work “4″ of the RBR DANCE COMPANY directed by Cristiano Fagioli in Italy, now in tour…a mystical and surreal atmosphere…Romina Salvadori with RBR Dance Company

This first, exciting foray into the world of the theater has inspired me to seek further opportunities in film , music videos, and theater, just the next step in my creative process.

Gaulti creates jewelry and art, his shop is located in Venice, Italy.

I create perfume–and people wear it–because beauty and art are a vacation from reality. Beauty brings about a morally valuable state in the mind of the beholder.  A well-proportioned and beautiful perfume can make those who smell it long to enter a realm of such beauty and perfect proportion.  The power of beauty may derive from its ability to minister to this longing.  The beautiful object creates, in the mind of those who attend to it, the spiritual home that reality does not provide. Beauty sustains an inner life. It feeds us.

I find that plants have an inherent beauty that is reflected in their aromatic component.   Natural aromas are richer and more nuanced precisely because they are real and simply too inviting for me to resist. I loved the complicated histories of natural essences, and their complex characters—at once delicate and harsh, fresh and decaying,—which made the perfumer’s palette so intense. I literally had to get my hands on them. The sweet, the foul, the spicy, and the fresh – I found them all alluring.  I loved the way they smelled and the way they looked, some like liquid rubies or emeralds in the light, some thick and pasty, other light and thin.

The names themselves seduced me –ambergris and costus, ylang ylang concrete.  Choya loban, orange flower, boronia, civet, tonka bean, champaca. Even those I recognized—jasmine, sandalwood, frankincense, myrrh, bitter orange, vetiver—conjured up ancient civilizations and exotic customs, long journeys and sensual torpor. The endless variations on each theme fanned my obsession. Once I discovered rose absolute, I had to try not only the Bulgarian version but the Russian, Moroccan, Turkish, Indian, and Egyptian as well.

Until the 1880s, all perfumes and fragrances were created from plant—and some animal–materials. The displacement of natural essences by synthetic materials in commercially produced fragrances began at the turn of the last century.  Unlike the natural essences, synthetic fragrances were cheap, colorless, stable, and consistent, and these qualities – and their “modernn ess” made them irresistible to industry. Eventually synthetics were used almost exclusively, and the demand for the naturals dwindled.

To create with essence is to encounter the deepest nature of a thing, which is in some sense greater than the thing itself. Working with essences, you dive deep in order to touch the universal. Irreducible and narcotic, they transport you into the polymorphous intensity of the present, in all its inchoate sensuality. Essences are at once specific and collective, earthly and otherworldly.

Music is the best metaphor for capturing the way great perfume is created. Individual essences are in fact called notes and are blended together to form chords. The place where I compose my perfumes is called a perfumer’s organ: a unit consisting of a semi-circular series of stepped shelves lined with hundreds of bottles of raw perfume materials arranged by scent category.

Sitting at the organ, I construct fragrance creations in much the same way that a musician chooses musical notes and composes chords. The musical scale serves as  an analogy to the perfumer’s palette precisely because its tones do not all fit together in easy consonance, but embody discord of various degrees. The same is true of the idiosyncratic traits and competing intensities of the essences. Musical concepts like tone, vibration, and harmony resonate in perfumery as well, where the relationship between essences structures a blend, just as musical structure depends largely on the relationship between tones.

Music also captures the way scent is experienced—not all at once but unfolding over time—a quality that in perfume is referred to as duration. In this unfolding lies that unparalleled power of these arts over memory and emotion. Music and scent can calm us, or they can arouse our passions–and in our ecstasies, exalt us. They seize us, they transport us to the highest realms, feeding a desire for intoxication. They alter our consciousness in a way that symbolic systems like language cannot, nor can their most transcendent effects be fully expressed by language. They are ineffable.

Mandy Aftel (www.aftelier.com) is the author of three books on natural perfume: Essence and Alchemy: A Book of Perfume which has been translated into seven languages and was the winner of The Sense of Smell Institute’s Richard B. Solomon Award. Aroma a cookbook (co-authored with chef Daniel Patterson) which focuses on the essential link between food and fragrance and includes recipes for both. Scents And Sensibilities guides the reader through the history and creation of solid perfumes.

Caracas is also the third most violent city in the world, after Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and New Orleans in the United States. The rate of homicides in 2008 was 52 persons for every 100 and of these 13 were gunned down. For 2009 the statistics indicate the rate of homicides increased to 56 persons for every 100 inhabitants, and more than 14 persons were murdered.

Such interpersonal violence is a public health issue at a macro level due to social inequality, fewer employment opportunities, loss of values such as religion and intolerance to diversity.  At a micro level, a high increase in the number of firearms, alcohol and drug consumption and a continuous angry invitation to violence by the president each time he does his 5 to 6 hour weekly television updates.  Social abuse and violence has been taught and rehearsed repeatedly week after week for the last 11 years.

Indeed in 2009, 57 uniformed men were assassinated, 27 of whom were part of the Metropolitan Police. This reveals a high level of corruption and consequent distrust by the population.

Instead, fear makes inhabitants sit motionless in front of the televised parade of bizarre, extreme acts to applaud enemies of democracy and insult kings, queens, presidents and politicians, home invasions and killings­ while failing to notice the widespread behavioral and personality disorders of the people who run the country which are the real news. Despite this chaos and downward societal sprial, this month the communist party of Venezuela ratified Hugo Chávez as the leader of the socio-political transformation in Venezuela.

We, clinical psychologists, are not allowed in Venezuela to give opinions about his mental status. Until now a fragmented  opposition, a paralyzing fear and a lack of awareness to seize the scientific applications to promote change –the same that Hugo Chavez is applying so successfully – has not allowed social mobilization.

Yet there are things Chavez cannot touch. Despite electricity and food shortages and high levels of insecurity, we have the Angel Falls. It is the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world, 15 times the height of Niagara Falls, with a drop of 3.230 ft originating from the flat top of Auyantepuy into the robust jungles of Guayana.

You can also take a small plane and go to Los Roques a choral archipelago which consists of many virgin atolls and small islands with white sand and sea and amazing colors in the underwater fauna and flora.

Felicitas Kort is an author and professor of Behavior and Cognitive Therapy in Caracas, Venezuela, Central University. Ms. Kort is a clinical psychologist in the field of behavioral and cognitive therapy in the area of post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and mood disorders. She is Chairman of the Board of the Venezuelan Association of Psychotherapy, President of the Venezuelan Association of Behavior Therapy,  Venezuela. Ms. Kort conducted a radio program talk show “Habits and Inhabitants” for six years with the purpose of disseminating various disorders in clinical psychology:  definitions, treatment and prevention.

Contact Info: Felícitas Kort, Clinical Psychologist Cell: 917-544 9414 ; felicitaskort@gmail.com