Top 20 greenest countries

Azores, Portugal

Portugal was considered one of the 20 most “green” countries in the world according to the Environment Perfomance Index, which evaluates the performance of 178 countries.

Madeira, Portugal

The study was developed in Yale and Columbia universities in partnership with the World Economic Forum and ranks how well countries perfom on high- priority environmental issues, in two broad policy areas:

- protection of human health from environmental harm
- protection of ecosystems

Continental Portugal (North)

COUNTRY RANKINGS

A State Dinner

A beautiful table set for dinner at the White House.

See the menu

Idioms (6)

MAKE ENDS MEET

All these idioms contain the verb make.

How many do you know?


idiom (n): an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made.


Make a pig's ear of something
If you make a pig's ear of something, you make a mess of it.

“I’ve made a pig’s ear of this picture. I’ll have to start again.”


Make a song and dance
If someone makes a song and dance, they make an unnecessary fuss about something unimportant.

“It’s just a few exams. You’ll be finished by the end of the week! don’t make such a song and dance about it!”


Make ends meet
If somebody finds it hard to make ends meet, they have problems living on the money they earn.

“Some of my friends have lost their jobs recently, and they are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.”


Make it snappy
To do something quickly.

“Make it snappy, will you, because I need help right now.”


Make your blood boil
If something makes your blood boil, it makes you very angry.

“Seeing people dropping litter really makes my blood boil!”


Make your toes curl
If something makes your toes curl, it makes you feel very uncomfortable, shocked or embarrassed.

“When I hear nails scratching a blackboard, it makes my toes curl!”


Make your day
If something makes your day, it pleases you or makes you very happy.

“If you send your mum some flowers, I’m sure it would make her day!”



© Clever Pants 2012

www.clever-pants.com

Shirley Temple Dies at 85

Who was Shirley Temple?

Adventures abroad 6

Yellowstone Park

Tomorrow my 9th grade students are going to read a text about Yellowstone Park. It brought me back memories when together with my family we crossed the USA from east to west, (for one whole month ) -  "the trip of my life"- as I usually say. 

Yellowstone was the first American park created in 1872. It is the size of Belgium. There you will find “ stately mountains, bison-specked meadows, tumbling streams, a sky-blue lake and wildlife beyond counting” (Bill Bryson. A Short History of Nearly Everything) .

One of the attractions are the geysers - the most famous is Old Faithful , and the Mammoth Hot Springs.

Old Faithful geyser . 2004

Gabriel Axel morre aos 95 anos.

Gabriel Axel, o realizador dinamarquês, que ganhou destaque internacional em 1988 quando conquistou o primeiro Óscar de Melhor Filme Estrangeiro para a Dinamarca com A Festa de Babette, morreu ontem aos 95 anos.

O filme, baseado num conto de Karen Blixen, está na minha lista de 10 melhores filmes de sempre. Narra a historia de uma parisiense do século XIX que encontra refúgio na casa de duas irmãs, filhas de um pastor protestante de uma aldeia conservadora dinamarquesa.

UN Global Education First Initiative

Did you know that 57 million primary-aged children worldwide do not have the opportunity to attend school? Additionally, 69 million adolescents are not able to get a quality education. And of the many children who are fortunate enough to have some formal education, 250 million do not have basic literacy and math skills. These are alarming figures, because data shows that a good education can lead to a better life and a stronger economy.

Last July on Malala Day, the UN’s call to action for governments, donors, organizations and individuals to support education was made stronger by the voices of youth from around the world. Their message was very clear: education must be at the forefront of the public agenda for both individual nations and the international development community.

UN Global Education First Initiative

David Simas na Casa Branca

David Simas: um português na Casa Branca

David Simas, o luso-descendente dos Açores, que na última campanha presidencial, foi diretor de sondagens dos democratas, acaba de ser nomeado líder do Gabinete de Estratégia Política da Casa Branca, na área da comunicação e estratégia.

'O Mio Babbino Caro'

Amira Willighagen sings 'O Mio Babbino Caro' on Holland's Got Talent and delivers an astounding performance ... 

This is simply breathtaking. It is difficult to believe she is only 9 years old.

Queen Victoria and the age of photography

Portrait of Queen Victoria Holding Portrait of Prince Albert, negative July 1854; print 

1889, Bryan Edward Duppa and Gustav William Henry Mullins, carbon print. Royal 

Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2013

The photographic age began in 1839, just two years after the 18-year-old Queen Victoria ascended to the throne. The Queen and her consort Prince Albert embraced the new medium. By 1842 they were collecting photographs and spending time together mounting family portraits into albums, and exchanging photographs as gifts at birthdays and Christmas. 

A Royal Passion: Queen Victoria and Photography is a new exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles that explores Queen Victoria's lifelong devotion to photography, and includes more than 40 photographs by some of the most influential and prolific photographers of the 19th century. 

The invention of the new medium of photography was announced first in Paris by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, then in London by William Henry Fox Talbot—at the beginning of 1839. 

The Great Exhibition opened in 1851 at the Crystal Palace, London. For many people in attendance, this was the first time they had seen a photograph. The early 1850s witnessed the rise of the photographic exhibition in Britain and the beginning of photographic societies around the country. Victoria and Albert's patronage and support were important to its rise in popularity. 

Over the course of her long reign, the queen was photographed as loving mother, devoted wife, grieving widow, and powerful sovereign. She was the first British monarch to have her life fully recorded by the camera, and her portraits became emblematic of an entire age. 

Read: Queen Victoria

Justin Bieber vs Arden Hayes

Amazing. You have to watch this!

February Face

Rui Machete in Washington

During his first official visit to the United States, Rui Machete, the Portuguese Foreign Minister joined the American Secretary of State, John Kerry, in reaffirming the enduring friendship between our two countries.

Read their remarks before the meeting and watch the video.

John Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry (Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões Ferreira) was born in Mozambique in 1938. Her parents were Portuguese. She married John Heinz III (the heir of The Heinz company) who died in a plane crash in 1991.They were both republicans.

In 1995 she married again with the former democratic senator John Kerry.

I heard Mrs. Kerry speak Portuguese fluently in Massachusetts in 2002 during O´Brien’s electoral campaign for the position of governor (at the time, the republican candidate, Mitt Romney, won the elections).

Two years later, Teresa Kerry also participated in her husband’s campaign for the Presidency of the United States (again a republican won the election: George W. Bush). Curiously, whenever the occasion for her to speak in Portuguese arises, such as in areas where the Portuguese community is large, she helps her husband and talks to locals. Unfortunately, though, she never, herself, assumes to be Portuguese and, perhaps, has some sort of prejudice against her origins. It’s a pity…

With that in mind, I was rather surprised when her husband said he was familiar with Portuguese at home, whilst the Portuguese Foreign Minister visited Washington...

Lisbon: A cool city

Photo: All you need is Portugal- Facebook

7 reasons Lisbon could be Europe's coolest city

By Fiona Dunlop, for CNN

January 26, 2014 

Pope Francis in Rolling Stone

Read The times they are a-changin’ at the Vatican in the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

Remembrance for Holocaust victims

January 27 is a day of remembrance for Holocaust victims in several countries.

Dachau shower room, April 1945

WE CAN NEVER FORGET IT!

Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain, was born in Missouri, in 1835.

At the age of four he moved with his family to Hannibal, a town on the Mississippi river much like the towns in his two most famous novels: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It was also a slave state. His father owned one slave and his uncle owned several. In fact‚ it was on his uncle’s farm that Clemens spent many boyhood summers playing in the slave quarters‚ listening to the slave spirituals that he would enjoy throughout his life.

The Great Race on the Mississippi. From New Orleans to St. Louis

When Clemens was twelve his father died and he left school to work as a printer’s apprentice for a local newspaper. His job was to arrange the type for each of the newspaper’s stories‚ allowing him to read the news of the world while completing his work.

While still in his early twenties, Clemens gave up his printing career in order to become a riverboat pilot, but with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 all traffic along the river came to an end‚ as did his pilot career. However he learned a great deal from his life on the river, mainly his pen name Mark Twain, which was a cry used on steamboats to indicate the depth of water-“mark twain” means that is safe to navigate.

In search of a new career‚ Clemens headed west. After failing as a silver prospector‚ he began writing for a Nevada newspaper and signed many articles, stories and novels, which gave him an almost unthinkable celebrity. 

His books were sold door-to door and he became wealthy enough to build a large house in Hartford, Connecticut for himself and his family.

Even though Clemens enjoyed financial success during his Hartford years‚ he continually made bad investments ‚ which eventually brought him to bankruptcy. In an effort to pay his debts‚ the family moved to Europe in 1891. When his publishing company failed in 1894‚ he was forced to set out on a worldwide lecture tour to earn money. In 1896‚ when his daughter Susy died from meningitis at the age of 24 while on a visit to the Hartford home, the Clemenses felt unable to return to the place of her death‚ and never returned to Hartford to live.

http://www.marktwainhouse.org/house/history.php

School

https://www.facebook.com/postsecret

Museu Coleção Berardo

Joana Vasconcelos. Néctar, 2006. Museu Coleção Berardo

The Museum Coleção Berardo in Belém, Lisbon was elected by The Guardian as one of the 10 best free museums in Europe.

Fotografia: Maria Teresa Relva

The clymene dolphin

Clymene dolphins. NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center

The clymene dolphin is a hybrid of two other species. All three species live in the Atlantic Ocean. This is the first known instance of hybridization among marine mammals leading to a new species, a phenomenon that is more commonly seen in plants, fish and birds. 

Ana R. Amaral, a researcher at the University of Lisbon and the American Museum of Natural History is the leading author of the study. Dr. Amaral said it was not clear exactly when in history the hybridization occurred - Scientist know that spinner and striped dolphins originated between one and three million years ago, so it was sometime after that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/science/scientists-find-rare-hybrid-of-two-other-dolphin-species.html?_r=0

Carlos Eirão: Teacher, Painter and Etcher

Carlos Eirão- Facebook photo

Carlos was born in 1961 in Penalonga, district of Vila Real, Trás-os Montes. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon where he got his masters degree in Theory of Art with a thesis about the Portuguese painter Nadir Afonso (1920-2013). He also studied etching in Lisbon. His paintings depict a wide range of interests and are a combination of mixed techniques on paper or canvas. 

Carlos received some awards in Estoril (1995) ; Amadora (1998); and Moita (2007). His works were presented in many exhibitions both individual and collective.

Carlos is a colleague of mine. We both teach at Agrupamento de Escolas do Restelo. It was a pleasure for me to interview him for our school digital paper, @contece, in 2012. Quite recently, he has sent an article  about Nadir Afonso, who has passed away.

For Christmas I got this etching I had admired in a previous exhibition.

Google Art Project

Museu do Caramulo

O Museu do Caramulo entrou este ano na galeria do Google Art Project, com 83 obras exemplificativas da sua colecção. O primeiro museu português a aderir ao GAP foi o Museu Colecção Berardo, a que se seguiram a Fundação Dionísio Pinheiro e Alice Cardoso Pinheiro, de Águeda e depois o palácio nacional de Sintra e o palácio nacional de Queluz.

Hail in Lisbon

If hail in Lisbon  caused so much trouble yesterday...

What would you say to this?

A typical winter day in Massachusetts?

Coastal Portugal hiking

Moorish Castle in Sintra

Are you making plans for your holidays? If you need some inspiration for travel adventures, CNN suggests Portugal:

September: Coastal Portugal hiking

While Portugal is well known for its port wine tourism, many travelers are just starting to realize how much more Portugal's rugged Atlantic coast offers the adventurer. A new REI Adventures trip from Lisbon to the Algarve hits villages, beaches and castles, ending up on the windswept, far-western Sagres promontory, on the edge of the Old World. Enjoy the food and drink in lovely cafes and plazas as you rest each night.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/17/travel/12-months-12-adventures/index.html?sr=fb011714adventures330p

Maria João Pires- Grammy Nominee

The Portuguese pianist, Maria João Pires, is for a second time a Grammy nominee (BEST CLASSICAL INSTRUMENTAL SOLO: Schubert- Piano Sonatas D. 845 & D. 96). It is a prestigious music award that will be held on January 26 in Los Angeles.

Good Luck! (we forgive you)

Maria João Pires and the wrong concerto 

The following video is quite extraordinary. Maria João Pires is ready to play a Mozart piano concerto with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw conducted by Riccardo Chailly, only to hear the orchestra begin playing another Mozart concerto. Can you imagine her horror? Watch the film to find out what happened. 

Congratulations, Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo wins Fifa Ballon d'Or

Cristiano Ronaldo has won the Fifa Ballon d'Or for the second time.

You´re simply THE BEST!

Everybody is a genius...

10-year-old girl refused to carry out a suicide attack

A ten-year- old Afghan girl named Spozhmai told police that her brother, who she said is a local Taliban commander called Zahir, had sent her on a suicide mission. He wrapped her in an explosives-packed vest and tried to convince her that the police- the target of the attack- would die but she would remain alive.  However she refused to blow herself up at a checkpoint in Helmand province.

While she was being forced to cross a river at night with her brother, she said the water was too cold and she wouldn´t do it. He took her home and her father bit her. She had to run away from home in the middle of the night. Early in the morning she surrendered herself to the police. 

Spozmai showed an incredible courage to frustrate her family terror plans.

Now, it seems President Hamid Karzai asked the interior ministry officials to reunite Spozhmai with her family after getting assurances of local leaders about her safety. 

What will happen to this courageous Afghan girl…? She should be attending school and playing with other children, preparing herself for a better life. 

At the moment I´m reading “I am Malala” the book of the Pakistan girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban. 

I hope the generation of these girls will have the possibility to choose their own destiny  in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Vinte e dois anos depois...

Hiko Nagahama. Ponte Vecchio.

Foi com muito prazer que regressei a Florença. Cidade onde  luz, cores, ruas estreitas e monumentos parecem transportar-nos para os tempos dos artistas e humanistas do Renascimento, que marcaram para sempre a história da Europa. 

Fiquei também fascinada pela criatividade e variedade das pequenas lojas comerciais, sempre com algo de diferente, ora inovador ora irónico.

Será muito difícil encontrar uma cidade da dimensão de Florença, cujo núcleo histórico se visita bem a pé, com um património artístico tão rico e fascinante.

Ao longo das margens do Arno, através das ruas estreitas ou nas praças amplas e senhoriais, o visitante passeia sem sentir a distância do entrelaçar das ruas.

No entanto, como madeirense, não gostei da passagem do ano. Foi muito desorganizada. Uma tão bela cidade merecia fogo de artifício realçando a sua beleza monumental e não lançamento anárquico de petardos e foguetes, prejudicando a orquestra, que tocava alguns belos e alegres temas musicais.

Também gostei de viajar nos comboios de alta-velocidade que fazem o trajeto entre Forença e Roma, de forma mais confortável, que há vinte e dois anos atrás.

Arrivederci Firenze.

Auguri!