Bizarre, bizarre

Smart gifts for older parents

2011-11-25T10:40:00.000-05:00

Image from http://drawingclassesnewcastle.com.au/category/latest-news/

Amongst all the many gifts I get from my daughter and her hubby that I appreciate most are these precious not-overly-expensive and very smart yearly gifts. These are things I really appreciate, even if I would not have thought of buying them for myself, so here is my top list.

1. A cell phone for emergencies ($10.00/month). I hate the thing, but if I get lost or if I get stranded with my old car, it is obviously very practical to be able to call. It gives me a great sense of security.

2. A AAA membership card ($ 66.00). I got an old car (it is a car, by the way, that they gave me), so about once a year, I get stranded and the card becomes a great gift: it makes it so easy to know what to do, plus they care about your security, which is good to know. The card has also discount advantages.

3. A teeth cleaning gift card (about $60.00 to 100.00). Bad teeth can create arterial lesions and give old people heart disease, so it is a good incentive and a very smart gift!

4. Dog and cat food. It is expensive on a small budget: sometimes it costs more to feed them than to feed yourself, so a gift for them is really appreciated!

5. A Walmart gift card.

6. A movie gift card. Suppose your parents don't go to the movies, but they won't want to lose the gift: it will do them good.

The Harlot of Babylon

2011-08-07T09:46:00.002-04:00

Image from Wikipedia

Governor Perry has invited his evangelical friends from Texas, Kansas and Yonder to an evangelical day of prayer that we badly need.
As it happens, the evangelical view is there to divide, not to unite Americans. They call Oprah "the Harlot of Babylon" and from what I read in the New York Mag the statue of Liberty is "demonic "
We suffer through this under the magic subtitle "freedom of expression."
Well, the good side of insults is that they are flexible. If I was inclined to pick on this, I would choose Jerry Springer as the Harlot of Babylon: to each its own; the sex of the harlot has not been determined.
And we can reverse this too, we could call Governor Perry "demonic" and the Statue of Liberty would become the Harlot of Babylon. It is more poetic this way.
I cannot remember that any candidate prayed in public for political gain when I was young. When I was young, prayer was different.

Did you know Churchill was a Saint?

2011-07-26T12:26:00.000-04:00

Image from the dailymail.co.uk and a paper from Beth Hale, 15th June 2010

I confess, I confess, I smiled when I found a site called WinstonChurchill.org this morning, very intent at proving that Winston did not smoke, did not drink, did not stutter, and that his father did not die from syphillis. I bet that next, they are going to prove that Churchill did not try to eliminate the civilian population of Mannheim. The members of that venerable institution are sure much younger than me, because it is not at all how I remember Churchill.

We all admired Churchill. I got my first glass of champagne the day our street became "avenue Winston Churchill": my father decided that we had to celebrate. But we had no need of changing his image, we liked our heroes with flaws.
It is all about image nowadays, which is probably why the famous cigar was airbrushed from the picture in front of the Winston Churchill's Britain At War Experience museum in London. Well, go ahead! I have seen already poor Presidents Kennedy and Reagan sanctified, do it with Winston too!
There is no flesh left on our heroes, that is why American children are not interested in history.
I never smoked, but this makes me feel like going out and buying a cigar. Romeo y Julieta was Churchill's favorite.

Snorting bath salts?

2011-07-18T10:59:00.000-04:00

How come so many people have a hard time getting high? I get high reading a good book or watching a raccoon. In fact I am feeling high most of the day. One must be pretty desperately bored with life to snort bath salts. I just read an article about this in the New York Times.
And so many people seem to have no sense of self-preservation: I would not take an aspirin without looking up "aspirin side effects" on google. I trust doctors, yes, but I still double check any medication they prescribe to me. Nobody cares as much about your life as you do, and there is a risk with any medication. So, bath salts? Stuff you buy on the street from people who know nothing of chemistry? How one can trust a dealer just passes my comprehension.
But then, I am just an old woman. A happy old woman.

Just a touch of racism

2011-07-05T08:50:00.002-04:00

GA has passed tough immigration laws, with this argument: we have 10 percent unemployment here, let us get rid of the illegal Hispanics and give the work to Americans. As a result, farmers in GA have a tough time finding enough workers this season, there are still 11,000 jobs openings to work in the field.
Unrepentent Governor Nathan Deal now tries to give the jobs to probationers, and it does not seem to work either.
As a result our three local TVs here in Savannah report this with comments like: "Americans do not want to work in the sun for 12 dollars an hour." Of course they say "Americans", but they think "Blacks."
It is a ridiculous statement. It is not that people "do not want to" work in the fields, it is that they do not know how. Work in the field is intensive: you cannot take a bus to go home, you got to stick around the farm to start early, when the temperature has not risen yet. Migrant seasonal workers are used to it, they pack and leave their home for the season. Georgians of any race have lost this capacity: they want a job, but they also want to be at home at night. For Pete's sake, it is not just a "job", it is a different lifestyle. A policy like this can only be successful if you spend a lot of money educating people and encouraging them to become seasonal migrants, and nobody knows if it would work. And I do not think that probationers are especially "lazy", I think that months in jail are not physically and mentally preparing you very well for hard work in the fields.

All this lack of workers means less money for the farmers, loss of foodstuff, more cost for the consumers. Our governor has not thought things through. I am sure he will say that it is the fault of president Obama, his usual scapegoat.
We need immigrants or we don't: it should not be a matter of political ideology, but a matter of good sense. If our farmers need seasonal workers, why don't we give seasonal work permits to the people who can do the work?

***

NOTE: Local stats say that about 8% of the white labor force in GA is unemployed compared to 14% of the black labor force. Black labor force is about one third of the total GA labor force (27%). Ga has 150,000 people on probation, about 2 times more blacks than whites.We got in addition 50 to 60,000 inmates, ruining the state finances, a testimony to the quality of our school system.

4th of July: Disabled Veterans

2011-07-03T15:22:00.002-04:00

I had a chance, not for the first time, to hear actor Gary Sinise talk about his dedication to disabled veterans. If you did not have a chance yet, have a look at his Foundation.

Most actors, if they have an audience and a camera go into performing mode. There is nothing wrong with that: it is what they DO. But I am moved by the fact that Sinise does not do it: when he talks about the cause, he is himself: he talks like a man, not like an actor with a cause.
It is real nice.

Laughable biography

2011-06-28T00:36:00.000-04:00

I found this ridiculous site www.nndb.com where you can find a who is who of the history of the world.
All authors are defined in terms like this:
Marcel Proust
Born: 10-Jul-1871
Birthplace: Auteuil, France
Died: 18-Nov-1922
Location of death: Paris, France
Cause of death: Pneumonia
Remains: Buried, Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Paris, France
Gender: Male
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Gay
Occupation: Author
Nationality: France
Executive summary: In Search of Lost Time

So Proust was white and gay?
What kind of donkey conceived these biographies? You can verify the sexual orientation of Voltaire and Diderot and Jean-Paul Sartre (all described as white and straight). Aristotle was a white straight guy (you wish) and his student Alexander the great a white bisexual. There is no indication of a sexual orientation for the saints, I wonder why. I verified Augustine (you know, the saint who was such an inspiring sinner?) No mention of his sexual orientation. HA!
Alexandre Dumas was "multiracial" (indeed his grandmother was a slave) and his son was "white". On and On: it is the pattern.
The whole setting is offensive and profoundly disgusting to me.

Health care: another point of view

2011-06-26T09:49:00.001-04:00

DRINKING BACCHUS - 1623 - GUIDO RENI
GEMÄLDEGALERIE, DRESDEN

from www.baroque.us/

One person out of ten in the USA suffers from addiction to alcohol or some kind of illicit drug abuse. Alcoholics die in general twenty years before their time (it is what scientists call “premature death”). This evaluation of addiction does not even take into account the smokers: over 400,000 people die every year from a cause related to tobacco. Another look at this is to say that half of the heavy smokers are dead by age 60.

What does that costs to society? Smoking deaths in the USA: about 92 to 137 billions/year, alcohol related deaths about 176 billions, other drugs 115 billions.

Gee! That would be about 400 billions or half of the federal health care budget saved per year if. Only IF is difficult to imagine and harder to achieve.

So half of what we pay covers one person out of ten.

The loss of self-preservation

2011-06-18T13:14:00.001-04:00

One thing I knew for sure: my young 30ish-years-old neighbor had a self-esteem problem. I kept buying him a small gift every month (like a nice T-shirt or a pair of black socks): I thought it would help. In time.

About a month ago, my neighbor came once more to borrow some gas (I usually let him get the gallon I keep for mowing). He looked high and had pin-head pupils, which made me mad, so I thought it was time for me to stop pretending I did not know he was on drugs. I said:
"It seems to me you are very close to the bottom. You ruined your parents, you lost your job, you lost your girlfriend, you lost the custody of your kids, you lost most of your teeth, I bet you don't have a sex life anymore. How low can you go? The bottom is next. Maybe you should think about rehab."
He was shocked that I was so direct, then he mumbled: "Maybe you are right." and he was gone.
As of last week, he is in jail for attempting to build a meth lab. There is at least ten years of prison for that in Georgia, and a 200,000 dollars fine.
I never thought he was a seller: I thought he was too disorganized, too hazy for it. I am certainly happy the Narcs caught him: I would not want to blow up because the guy next door is not a chemist: I would not trust him to boil water. In a less selfish way, the idea that he would push other young people like him into that free fall where self-preservation does not matter is repulsive. So, it is good thing he got caught.
I am also very sorry. Free fall is a terrible thing to watch. And how on earth do you stop it?

Hacking my old computer?

2011-06-15T20:39:00.002-04:00

My internet provider, comcast.net has gracefully offered me the use of a new computer protection. I figured they must have a reason, so I just installed it.
In 2 hours, I have been attacked 4 times. I got curious and ran the IP numbers (admire what a 70 years old woman can do, and do not laugh.)
These attacks came from China.
I 'm flattered; here I am peacefully minding my own business and writing novels on my old computer that nobody will read. If you are curious, however, the links to my novels are HERE.
What on earth do these Chinese want? Do they expect to fall by accident on some dark military secrets or to rob a bank or what?
One thing I am pretty sure of: they do not want to spend time on my computer.
If they only knew.
By the way, there is a marvelous early novel on hacking you would enjoy if you like the subject: the technology has changed, but humans remain the same, and I loved that book: The Cuckoo's egg.

Enough is enough

2011-06-10T07:21:00.001-04:00

Edouard Manet La blonde aux seins nus, musée d'Orsay, Paris, France ©photo musée d'Orsay / rmn

I understand that a young man with boiling hormones would want to send nude pictures of himself on the Internet. It is dangerous and stupid, but if the young man is, say, less than 25 years old, I can see where it comes from.
But a Middle-aged - Married - Representative?
It is sick.
We can elect better people than that.

A new way to play "guess who?"

2011-06-08T06:38:00.001-04:00

You have to invite 8 actors (4 males, 4 females) for dinner, dead or alive. Here are the rules:
Two have to be very elegant of mind and looks Are you going to pair Audrey Hepburn and Ben Affleck? Would that work? Who would you pair Helen Mirren with? It does not have to be man and woman: you can pair Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan if it is your fantasy.
One has to be of the wired type (no names, your choice). You won't have any trouble picking just one! But you cannot have two in your whole list.
One is very funny Cosby? Jim Carrey? Robin Williams? Tina Fey?
Two are known for charity causes Lots and lots of names fit here! Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Michael J. Fox, Pitt, Clooney, Paul Newman, Jacky Chan ... and on the female side Alicia Keys, El. Taylor, Penelope Cruz, Helen Hunt, Madonna, Mia Farrow ....
One is under 25 years old : honor the youth! Do some research!
One is a method actor It does not have to be Brando, you can pick Ed Norton, Meryl Streep, ....
One is a character actor well known on TV
Two are not married at present
One is blonde.
Happy mix! The final rule is that when you get them together, you think that there is a good chance it will be a successful evening.

You got to explain this to me: what toxic assets?

2011-06-03T20:19:00.001-04:00

I have been listening to talks about toxic assets for three years and I still don't get it. Please help!
I always thought that the idea of bundles (you link a lot of good houses with one or two risky-toxic ones) was very good: it is the way to go because it limits the risk. Also, we all know that the price of houses can level or fall because it happens every time that an average house costs more than two median salaries can afford. I know that: it was a big problem when I was still in Paris in the 80s. So of course bankers take that into account.
I have been in school long enough to know that you can estimate how much risk you can take, and banks do that every day, so what happened? I read that the banks did not care because they insured their risk.
Fair enough.
Now it is the insurance's business to estimate risk. How are they going to make money on your life if they don't know when your prostate is likely to lose its ... its spongicity? They got tables, they push a button, and they know how much of a risk you are. Estimating the risk is what they do for a living, right? And they are widely used to the theory of bundles: they bundle the risk of a hurricane in coastal zones with the risk of tornadoes inland. It is their profession to estimate the risk and to bundle it to their advantage. It is all about statistics, whether you buy, or sell, or if you are a a banker and in the end, even more so if you are an insurer.
So, if you would stop throwing to my face words like greed and toxic assets, which look like they explain the crisis but don't, and tell me what really happened, I would be grateful: I don't get it. There are always toxic assets, being in life insurance or in housing or in car insurance. That is what estimating risk is about. I am under the disquieting impression that we are treated like a bunch of idiots. It is simple: I want to know who cheated.

Great movies you might have missed

2011-06-02T17:42:00.006-04:00

Everybody knows about Gone with the wind, Chariots of fire or Lawrence of Arabia... but I think you might enjoy some less remembered oldies.
Here are some of my favorites.
Moulin Rouge 1952. A chance to see Jose Ferrer, one of the best actors of his generation, and Zsa Zsa Gabor in all her glory. The movie presents the tragic life and the art of Toulouse-Lautrec. It is a tour de force of acting: Ferrer had to walk on his knees to appear to have short legs. It has beautiful colors, the can-can, and Lautrec's life is not trivialized. A perfect movie.

The man who never was 1956 This film is about operation Mincemeat and is based on a real story of WW2. The British wanted to deter the attention of the Germans from Sicily. They decided to use a corpse transporting letters that would indicate the invasion will take place in Greece. The movie is fascinating: how does one find a suitable corpse? All corpses, says one of the spies, belong to somebody. Then they have to find a place where the corpse will be found by German spies. They also have to invent for the corpse a suitable life: this goes from what kind of shirts he wears, to his bank account, to his girlfriend. The subject makes the movie very unusual, so does the personality of Clifton Webb, a delightful British actor, who plays the main role. An actor who died too young, Stephen Boyd, plays the spy for the Germans who is verifying the tale of the man who never was. He has a smile that will chill your bones.

North to Alaska 1960 It is comedy with John Wayne who has Stewart Granger as a partner, and I think it has the most beautiful fist fight in the history of the movies.- just like the most beautiful car chase remains to this day in The French Connection. You cannot beat the rhythm of that bar fight. It is also a very entertaining oldie.

Miracle Worker 1962 an Arthur Penn film with Anne Bancroft. What else do you want? As I remember it, it is black and white, and it is an aesthetic choice that enhances the movie. It tells the story of Helen Keller as a child. There was a time when deaf and blind children were not educated: nobody knew how. They were kept hidden and treated like animals. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind child who learned to communicate, she became a symbol of hope for several generations (she was still alive when I was a child, and I remember that the Louvre museum allowed her to touch the sculptures). The movie is no way edifying, it is just very beautiful.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1964 It is French film, and were we impressed with the young Catherine Deneuve! This a very original musical, on a music by Michel Legrand. Every dialog is sung, which makes the movie special, but so do the colors. The story is about bitter-sweet love. It is really unique, you got to see that, even with English subtitles. One of the most romantic movies you can see, with a French twist.

Avanti! 1964 One of the best Billy Wilder. One of the best Jack Lemon. One of the best comedy ever made. The action takes place in Italy; it allows Wilder to contrast the American efficiency and the laid-back attitude of Italians: he is mocking both, efficiently, but with affection.The British Marilyn of the time, Juliet Mills is wonderfully funny.

Sleuth 1972 and Sleuth 2007. A thriller with just two people for the duration of the movie. This is the first time that I see a remake as good as the original. In the first play, an aging Laurence Olivier is opposed to a young Michael Caine. Olivier plays a rich novelist who attracts his wife's lover to his castle and plans to kill him. The play was on Broadway for a long time, it was written by Anthony Shaffer. The first movie (unhappily on VHS only) shows the novelist playing games and trapping his victim with brilliance. The decor is unforgettable, with mechanical toys everywhere. In the second film (2007 on DVD), Michael Caine plays the injured husband, Jude Law plays the younger guy. The director is Kenneth Branagh, the story is the same, but on a adaptation by Harold Pinter. Pinter tweaks the story here and there, so even if you remember the first movie quite well, you cannot guess how the second ends, and you are on edge, because the characters are slightly different. The decors are here super minimalists. For a movie amateur, it is a real treat to compare the two Caine. Every kid who dreams to become an actor should analyze this. Two perfects films, three perfect actors.

The day of the jackal 1973 Fantastic thriller. This is the story of an attack of the life of General De Gaulle when he was President of France. Many attempts on his life were made, mainly because he gave independence to Algeria which a lot of French people considered to be French territory. The movie is based on the beautiful book by Frederick Forsyth. There are several extraordinary ideas in the movie. First the casting: all great actors, even in small roles. The lead role, the hit-man, looks anything but: he looks sweet as pie. Edward Fox plays the hit-man and the contrast between his appearance and his ruthlessness is one of the major breathtaking points of the film. The editing is excellent, the rhythm perfect, the images beautiful (Ah! Paris in the 70s!). The police does not know who the hit-man is or where he is: can they catch him in time?

Last tango in Paris 1973 Certainly the best Marlon Brando. Beautifully filmed. It is both erotic and disturbing. No fun, but you won't forget it. Nobody does, even people who hate it.

White nights 1985 combines an excellent thriller with an outstanding dancing film. This unlikely combination is made successful by the hard work of director Taylor Hackford. It is the story of a Russian dancer who has escaped the Communist regime; he is held prisoner in Russia again and plans to escape. He tries to enroll the help of a pro-communist American who hoped to escape racism and the Vietnam war by fleeing voluntarily into Russia. Every dance in the movie has a reason, political or psychological, so it does not eat the action. There is, through dance, an evolution of the feelings of the two protagonists, the classic Russian dancer (Baryshnikov) and the American tap dancer (Gregory Hines). One of the best movies I have seen. And two of the best dancers you will ever see.

The name of the rose 1986 The movie is so, so much better than the book. Sean Connery as an investigating priest in the middle ages is very convincing. The director, Jean-Jaques Annaud, filmed in an ancient monastery with props so close to the real thing that they are used as educative tools in museums nowadays. The faces are also as "medieval" as one can imagine. There is a lot of human darkness here, but this is as close to real middle ages decor, atmosphere and beliefs as you are going to be. If you are interested in medievalism, this is the real thing: don't miss it.

Educating Rita 1983 with Julie Walters and Michael Caine. Julie Walters plays a hairdresser who wants to go to college and have an education. It is a very difficult role, because she has to appear ignorant at the start of the film without being caricatural or offensive. Caine plays an alcoholic professor who has lost his drive. What makes of it a good movie is that they do not fall in love with each other. What makes of it a great movie is that despite everything, the professor still enjoys the progress of the student. This is played wonderfully and it is entertaining to watch.

Secondhand lions 1983 One of my favorite movies, between a comedy and a fairy tale. It is all about Texas, a gentle family film with great actors: Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, the wonderful Kyra Sedwick and the young Haley Joel Osment. As great a family film as was A Christmas story.

Midnight run 1988 A splendid comedy with Charles Grodin in his best role and Robert de Niro ... adorable. I thought it was as good as Some like it hot.

61* 2001 One of the best movies of the decade. This is a profound baseball movie about two questions: 1. Can you compete and still be friends? 2. Why is it that some people are charismatic and others are not seen as they really are?
Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane play Maris and Mantle in decors and with a style reconstructed in excruciating details. A little wonder.

The greatest political mystery

2011-06-01T07:48:00.001-04:00

No, it is not whether Sarah Palin will run, though a lot of journalists try to get us excited about it, like they tried with good ol' Trump who made them all look ridiculous, especially Anderson Cooper. Cooper said he was keeping Trump honest. And who is keeping Cooper honest, Donld Trump?
Trump got millions of dollars of free publicity out of his stunt, and it is just what he wanted: it does not matter to him what we think of him.
The greatest mystery to me is this. How come the same politicians, left and right, who appear so obnoxious, even odious on the floor, appear to be competent, able and responsible in their respective committees?
Just spend 2 hours on C-Span and you will see that it is true. They are good people, left and right, in committees, and then they go posturing and insulting our intelligence in their general assembly.
What is going on?

Oprah: see you soon

2011-05-26T11:58:00.000-04:00

I very seldom saw Oprah, because I am usually working when the show comes on. I was under the impression that she is a decent kind of person, it is not that frequent for TV personalities. So yesterday I did watch her last show.
She is a decent person. Moreover, I realized that we never see sincerity on TV (I am not criticizing the lack of it: we don't see sincerity because it is all about entertainment). She was all sincere yesterday. I am going to miss it.
Sincerity, just like that, it was very nice.

The perfect toilet

2011-05-19T06:21:00.001-04:00

The perfect toilet, says my informative and local anchorman, just came on the market: you can plug your Ipod in it.

Men who grope

2011-05-18T09:29:00.004-04:00

image from http://www.troisgraces.fr/EN/#/home

Some things are hard to know about other people: it is hard to know, for instance if the people you want to hire are honest.
But it is very easy to know how a man treats women. All you hear about Arnold and Dominique Strauss-Kahn is that people who know them are not surprised. I never liked the way that Arnold treats women in public: he has, in the eye of my generation no education.
I have never met Piers Morgan of CNN, and I am not fond of many of his ideas, but I am pretty sure he does not grab the ass of young women in the lift to his office.
It is about the way a man thinks of himself, even more than the way he thinks about women.
How to Be a Gentleman: A Timely Guide to Timeless Manners
The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man

Bin Laden and the reward that was not claimed

2011-05-17T07:23:00.001-04:00

Who protected Bin Laden in Pakistan? We don't know. Any government turns out to have murky ideas as far as terrorists are concerned. If you doubt that, look at the history of the U.S.A. with colonel Khadafi. Is it clear to you? What strikes me is that Bin Laden did not have a large force to protect him; he counted on anonymity rather than on the government. It is interesting. He probably had some protection, but not full support.
By contrast, I clearly remember the French village where the Ayatollah Khomeini took refuge in 1979: it was peppered with security officers from the Gendarmerie Nationale. They always had a police bus in front of the compound. Not only the protection was official, but you could see high antennas on the roof of the property: it was before the time of the Internet; Khomeini sent his messages by radio all over the Arab world, with the full complicity of the French. Murky, murky, and we have been in trouble ever since.
And how come the multi-million dollar reward offer had no effect? As I am very old and I have traveled a lot, I can tell you this: there is one very greedy person on every block of every town all over the world. No exception. Somebody sold Jesus, remember? Treason during World War 2 was common. What about Bin Laden?
There is something that we have not done right. I guess a lot of people would have liked the money and feared retribution: they wanted to stay home and enjoy the money, they did not want to emigrate here under our protection to enjoy it. Our reward program abroad has to be modified: logic tells me it should have worked better than that.

Don't laugh and drive

2011-04-22T07:11:00.000-04:00

Imagine that your zygomatic muscles hurt, your lung volume diminishes suddenly, your airways are compressed, your diaphragm becomes rigid and your toes curl up of pleasure instead of quietly apply pressure on the brake pedal. Is it dangerous to laugh and drive? Certainly.
Yet, I cant find statistics of accidents caused by laughing, which indicates that more people take drugs, drink and use their cell phone while driving than actually have a good laugh.
Lucky them, I am risking my laugh, sorry my life, daily. Yesterday I almost bumped into a bus: it had an ad for a local lawyer: "a real lawyer" said the ad.
A real lawyer: I keep wondering about the "real lemon", "real eggs", "real meat" in the grocery store. A "real lawyer", what can I say? It is cheesy, no?

Lent in the Great South

2011-04-14T19:25:00.000-04:00

Two ladies came to my door to invite me to celebrate Jesus' death. I was shocked and I told them it was not for me. I would celebrate a resurrection, but there is no way I'll celebrate anybody's death.
One lady looked at me sternly and said: "The Bible says Jesus died for our sins."
I answered: "You want to celebrate that?"
YES THEY DO.
You would think that they are a little be ashamed that somebody died for them, or worried that they may not be worth it, or try to be better persons to avoid Christ some suffering. But no, mainstream theology, specially in the South, says that the sacrifice of Christ is sufficient, you do not need to do anything, just accept it, and that is what they do. "Thank you Lord, I repent and I am washed of all sins ..."
Early theologians did not talk to the sophisticated narcissistic crowds we deal with today.
As a result, we got in Georgia a staggering number of people "in the system, " meaning in jail or in prison, or on parole. It is hard to find neighbors who never got to jail around here.

And in the USA, the best country in the world, there is close to one million kids abused or neglected every year.
A.D. of course.

Radiation: what is the risk ?

2011-03-19T09:03:00.001-04:00

Natural radioactivity is found everywhere in nature. We can use it to measure time, because each radioactive isotope decays at its own rhythm. Archeological artifacts, as well as the age of the earth, the age of a cave, the age of ice, the age of human ancient bones can be deduced by measuring their radioactive activity. The yearly levels of natural radioactivity for humans (2.4 mSv) pose no risk: there is life on earth. In addition we take on average 0.5 mSv a year from medical imaging radiation. However, if you build a house in granite (usually rich in uranium) and if it is well insulated, you might have a problem: you will need to ventilate enough to get rid of the radon gas constantly produced in your house.
When radioactivity is used by scientists and engineers, it is a different ballgame, because there is more radioactivity concentrated in a smaller space. Pierre and Marie Curie, for instance, suffered burns from some of their radioactive samples.

Left: a page of the Curie's notes; Right: autoradiography of the same page

showing a thumbprint (lower right) and some radium deposits on top.

(Musee Curie, Paris)

The dangers have been identified for over a hundred years. I found over the years that students who work with radioactive objects (we call that a "source") react in different ways. They range from the person who is too afraid to take on the job to the person who is too "macho" to respect the rules of caution. You cannot be macho with radioactivity: you cannot see it or smell it, but just like bacteria, it can kill.
So, a biology prof. will have designed for the students experiments that include very little risk, but watch carefully for the clown of the class who never washes his hands; a radioactivity prof. will have experiments offering very little risk, but watch for the clown who does not follow procedure and eventually exclude him from the class (in my experience, it is always a male).
Workers who work in nuclear facilities can take a max dose of 50 mSv per year. However, the rule is not that nobody cares until they reach that dose, the rule is that one should achieve occupational doses that are as low as is reasonably achievable (ALARA). As a result, about half of the workers on nuclear plants present no measurable radioactivity over background, and the others typically have doses of 1 to 2 mSv. At doses one thousand times stronger, you got very very serious health problems.
What are the rules? Pretty simple:
1. Limit the time exposure. Do not stay close to the source any more than you have to (if you work with one source, why keep several close to you? Put them away!)
2. Use a shield to protect yourself. Depending of the radiation level, you can handle the source with prongs without touching it; wear protection, like a lead apron; or keep the source behind a lead wall or in a special container. Each level of radiation requires an appropriate procedure.
3. Keep your distance. At two times the distance, the radiation is four times lower (because of the dispersion from the source, it is called the inverse square law).
So, if distance is so effective, how is it that one can measure traces of radioactivity all over the world after a nuclear test (like the US and the USSR did in the 50s and 60s), or an accident like Chernobyl? That is because small particles of radioactive material are scattered throughout the earth's atmosphere by winds. These particles go all around the world in less than a week. Soon after the Chernobyl accident, radioactive particles fell on the ground with rain as far from Ukraine as Finland and Greece. The spots of radioactivity on the following map are linked to rain events.

Image from http://maps.grida.no/

The radioactivity level was in such spots about 100 times the natural level. The fallout is made of particles, so the best way to be decontaminated is to take a shower. Is that all? No, because particles falling on soil will be integrated in plants and contaminate the food chain. Then, it can be dangerous, because a radioactive particle which is absorbed by your body will keep giving radiation for all the time it is radioactive.

Why is it that scientists think that there is no danger in the US from a Japanese radioactive fallout? First because they evaluate the potential danger as lower than Chernobyl, but mostly because the US is far from Japan. On the following Peters map, you can compare directly the surface of Europe to the surface of the Pacific ocean: you could enter western Europe about two times between Japan and the US.

Glorious day!

2011-03-14T08:36:00.002-04:00

image from http://www.troisgraces.fr/EN/#/home

This magnificent little painting called the three Graces has been acquired by the Louvre museum, thanks to a good campaign to raise the interest of donors. It can be seen for the first time, because it was in a private collection.

It was painted in the 16th century by Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German painter you certainly know even if you don't remember his name: he painted the most famous portrait of Martin Luther, and Adam and Eve under an apple tree, hiding their sex with grape leaves.

There is always something mysterious about Cranach paintings: the look of Jesus crowned with thorns, the attitude of the bride of an old man, the depiction of fights. Here you wonder about the woman's hat, the girl on the right holding her foot. There is irreverence in this painter of church subjects.

How to be a genius

2011-03-06T10:56:00.004-05:00

I started a small web site using wordpress and got the structure of it, then I got short of time and let it for a few weeks. There is no text yet, but nobody will look at it right? So it does not matter, I will finish it when I get the time.
Well, as of yesterday, I had about one thousand comments about it. About 90 percent of the people who comment congratulate me on how interesting my site is (how come? It is empty), say how much it made them think(???), thank me for my good tips and even say that I am a genius(who would not appreciate that!) About ten percent come with a slight criticism, in hope that I will click on their site and verify who dares to criticize me.
Of course you can add to that a few comments in Russian and a few ads for Viagra.
But I think that, overall, a thousand comments about NOTHING is quite a success.

The misery of Charlie Sheen

2011-02-28T13:25:00.001-05:00

I have no interest in Charlie Sheen at all, I have never seen him play (sorry, Charlie) and I do not want to. But I resent the way he is treated by his friends in general and ABC in particular. It is obvious that Sheen is suffering some sort of manic episode: it is therefore easy to get interviews from a man who hardly knows what he says.
Suppose he has a physical problem instead of a head problem, say leper, this is the equivalent of telling him: "Show your fingers, Charlie, the public wants to know if they will fall off."
Good for ratings? Maybe, but what about basic standards of ethics?

The View had this morning a friend of Charlie explaining that Charlie has withdrawal problems: the friend is an hypocrite, he was the first to interview him!
They used to have interviews of Nick Nolte when he was at the peak of his glory and at the peak of his bad days. Now nobody cares how he lives or die.
This is not a decent way of treating human beings.

Survival Skills

2011-02-11T06:28:00.000-05:00

This country was built by people who had good survival skills. The skills were transmitted by parents to children at a time when there was no school.
Nowadays the basic skills we need are not so different, though they apply to the city jungle: we still need to learn how to handle a budget, especially if we are poor, and how to find a job, especially if we do not have a job.
A number of jobless people around here, in Savannah GA, have very good working skills, mainly in housing jobs (electricians, plumbers, carpenters who have suffered from the economic downturn), and I am surprised to see how many of them have no survival skills: they do not know how to manage a smaller budget, what is the best time to show up for a job, how to dress for a job interview, when to ask for a letter of recommendation, or even how to manage food stamps.
How come?

The mind of Gen. Stanley McChrystal

2010-06-24T07:25:00.001-04:00

If you are an almost nobody in your 20s, any good journalist can get you to forget he/she is a journalist and get you to say things you do not really wish the world to know: the fact is that journalists have no friends, they just have sources.
But if you are a well known hero general in his 50s, what makes you run your mouth? You got to know that the journalist will tell what you say, even if maybe you do not realize how much you said.
The general and his team did not just criticize the President, they were unhappy with everybody: Washington, their own ambassador in Afghanistan, the Afghan President, the British allies, and that says only one thing: it says they were not on top of the game.

Two good books for Teens

2010-05-26T20:39:00.006-04:00

Most great writers are jerks; you know this if you go to book talks or listen to C-SPAN. They have lots of excuses but the fact remains. So, it is a real pleasure to recommend good books written by good people, even more because good books for Teens are so rare:
1)Chris Gardner: Start where you are
Gardner puts just as much effort telling you what could make you successful as he did to raise himself out of poverty. The book is well organized and full of examples and can reach any teen searching his way. There is sincerity in every page which I appreciated because most books about success are filled with fillers, truisms and half-truths. There is real experience here and a constant effort to lay down the rules. Buy the book and leave it in the living room: it will find its way to the teens living with you.
There are a few things that Gardner does not much talk about: part of what made him, and because it is part of him, he does not realize how important it was to his success. First is his constant curiosity: he is curious of other people, of what makes them tick, of what is going out in the world. I think that it is pretty hard to be successful if you go in life mentally blind to the world around you.
Second is his immense capacity to do dull work. There is nothing as discouraging as cold calls in business: you call people you do not know to sell them something, 99 percent of the time, they hang up on you, and that is when they do not insult you, so your capacity to be rejected has to be pretty good to go on doing it. Now Chris Gardner, when he started, decided to give 200 calls a day. Superman does that! Suppose you tell a class of teenagers that if they do it for a year, they will have a comfortable position in life, how many would still do it after three days?
Third is his capacity to admire: Gardner is able to learn from anybody: poor or rich people, nice people or not: if there is something useful to him, he will take the lesson with him and remember it.
These three characteristics define more than Chris Gardner, they define many successful people from different horizons like Mark H. McCormack (What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School) or Quincy Jones. Quincy authored the most beautiful biography, but it is not for kids.
Curious, hardworking, able to admire others and learn from them: that what makes not only successful people but heroes.
2) John Grisham :Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer Grisham has written a thriller for teenagers which is intelligent, taut, full of indirect advice and delightful. Of all the successful writers or legal thrillers than I read, Grisham is the only one who always wonders what is the right thing to do: this is something any teen should be interested about, and it is the subject of this book.

The Narcissist Generation

2010-05-01T15:53:00.002-04:00

I should have seen it coming. The first time I saw a mobile phone, about twenty five years ago, I was very impressed: mobile phones were not cellular back then, they came with a heavy suitcase and looked like the army field phones. A person with a phone like this must have an important job and be able to answer in an emergency. That is what I thought.
A middle aged man sitting next to me at the airport took a heavy phone out of his case, deployed a five feet antenna and said:
“I am at the airport. The plane is on time.”
I guess I had expected 007, I felt deflated.
Similarly, when my friend Mr. Dulac, who had a small TV and electronic shop in the French town of Angouleme, installed a car phone for the first time, it was for a man who wanted to call his wife to tell her to open the garage door when he came home.
Nowadays when I go to the grocery store, one person out of three is on their cell phone. I roll my cart next to them, and what do they say?
“I am at Wal-Mart”, or “I am at Kroger’s” or they say: “I think that I’ll buy an Iceberg salad.”
Then they go home and they twitter the same message.
What kills me is that I do not understand whom they are talking to. Does one third of the country talk to the ten percent unemployed people we have? It does not make statistical sense. Who has the time to listen to this incessant chatter and to read all these Twitter and Facebook messages? What do these people DO?
What kind of friends does this new generation have? All my friends work. They remodel houses, they teach, they are ex-military going back to school, they pave roads, they invest, they write books. Even if they do not have a job, they all work. Of course all of them, including my ex-students, are over forty years old.
I think that if I called any of them to say that I am at the grocery store and considering, God forbid, buying an Iceberg salad, they would have me committed.

New Cons, New Cheats, New Scams

2010-04-22T10:06:00.010-04:00

It is always the same dishes, but they come in new flavors:
On the food market:
Have you noticed that whatever you buy, the serving size is about 170 calories? That is because the food industry knows that you are going to check the number of calories, right? You never check the serving size. I had a bag of potato chips the other day, with a serving size of three chips. So what they do is divide the total amount of calories in any food package by 170 and they get a serving size.
Conclusion: there is no use checking the number of calories, check the number of servings!
On my tele:
There is a new trend of trying stuff for free or at a low price. That is very nice. What bothers me is that if you can try it with good conditions, they never tell you the real price. Why, do you think, are they doing that?
Using the government's authority: there is a lot of healthcare companies that try to make you believe that they are somewhat "official"; they use some declaration of the President and then they send you letters stamped "public" or "official". I guess there is nothing illegal with that. The last offer I got was to be returned to some "Administrative Processing Center" at a POBox in Atlanta. I turned the letter around and around, there was no way to know who these guys are.
Telephone scams :
Phone scams are as old as phone companies. What is new is that some companies who call do not tell you their name. "I am John from the credit company" is typical. They do not say "Your credit company", that would be illegal, they think that you will not notice, or that you do not know that "the credit company" does not mean anything.
The other day, a well known national bank called me. The guy on the phone was also named John, he said. He was calling from India: the probability that his name is really John is no greater than the chance that I would be called Rabindranath. I do not mind being called from India, I just do not like being lied to: should I trust a bank whose first call starts with a white lie?
The worst new scams of course are directed at people who look for work. They are all going to get rich with the internet. I would say that this is a specially disgusting kind of scam, but I know that the blind and the handicapped are the first to be robbed and that the desperately ill are promised miraculous cures every day, so robbing the poor comes next.
What frightens me is that people who use these tricks lack elementary morality. They do not see that there are crimes against the law but also crimes within the law. Some crimes are crimes against the heart and should not be called "a part of business" when it is the wrong thing to do.

Water Day

2010-03-22T07:51:00.003-04:00

Are we really running out of water, before we run our of fuel? It is the concern of the CEO of Nestle.
Check what he says here on the BBC using this graph and some compelling arguments.

A History of Sex

2010-01-31T08:23:00.020-05:00

Image from MaryCassatt.org
Mary Cassatt did not get married, which does not tell you anything about her.

The ways we are having sex do not change with time, but the ways we interpret it vary with time and place. For instance, the President of France, Francois Mitterand, wanted to be buried in presence of his wife and his mistress, and it is how the two women presided the official ceremony in 1996 (you can find a picture of it here) I heard of Presidents of the USA who had a double life, but I doubt very much that a scene like this would be appreciated by the American voters: different places, different point of views.

Similar differences can be observed in the past. A history of sex should be mandatory for US historians, because they fail to understand the simplest cultural factors of the past. I was listening yesterday to professor Brands re-telling to a fascinated audience that Eleanor Roosevelt warned her daughter, on the eve of her marriage, that sex was an ordeal to be borne.
What does it mean? That Mrs. Roosevelt did not like sex? That she was a lesbian? That her husband was a prick? I am not sure. The one thing I know for certain is that four or five great aunts and old cousins of mine, all born in the 1880s like Mrs. Roosevelt, told me the exact same thing when I got married. Women born in the 1880s in the bourgeoisie all had a Victorian education (Queen Victoria died in 1901.)
Good women were not supposed to like sex, only bad women enjoyed it; good women only suffered through it. So, men got married to a bourgoise who had children and they had mistresses for the fun of it. This not only explains La Belle Epoque and the can-can dancers with open drawers (unlike the abundant lace you see in the movies), but a lot of the early 20th century architecture. Paris is full of bachelors' pads of the period, with just one large front room, a small bath and a kitchen relegated at the end of a long hallway, so the servants could respect your privacy.
I do not mean that married women of the early 1900s did not enjoy sex, just that they were not supposed or expected to: the culture was so pervasive all over the Western world that several of the old women I knew were convinced that female cats were always raped (only the male cat enjoyed sex!)

Image from cat-lovers-gifts-guide.com

So what is the meaning of what Mrs Roosevelt told her daughter? It means that she was born in the 1880s.
Similarly, all the discussions about lesbians in the 19th-early 20th century have to be taken with caution. A woman who writes to another woman nowadays that she wants to sleep in her arms is probably a lesbian. One century ago, the same letter does not mean a thing: maybe yes (I am longing for you), maybe no (like: sister, I wish we were peacefully together).What people write reflects their culture and their personality, you cannot infer who they are from what they write out of both contexts.
Above all: why would you care about other people's sex life?

Useful reading: Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (Galaxy Books) by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon by Mark Bostridge

Terrorism and Tacit Consent

2010-01-10T11:40:00.007-05:00

Some years ago, I was convinced that my neighbor was a drug dealer, because I saw dealers going in and out of her apartment all day long. I was wrong: she would never deal because she was a very Christian person, but she sheltered the dealers. It was a totally new concept to me. Why did she do it? Because, she said, they were kids with no hope of getting a job. These dealers were hard to eradicate: they had been on our street for decades, but when that neighbor moved away, the dealers on the corner of my street moved too. It convinced me that dealing is the kind of crime that most often comes with a support group.

It reminded me of another Christian I had met in Ireland. He would never commit an act of terrorism, but he would always hide a terrorist. The idea of calling the police seemed to him equivalent to a betrayal.

Similarly, I knew of a very pacifist Palestinian who would never commit an act of terrorism himself, but he understood and would have protected terrorists. Why? He understood what they were fighting for, agreed with the ends if not with the means. And of course he was constantly subjected to propaganda. For instance he told me that the proof that "the Jews own America" is that the star of David is on the US dollar; I guess he meant the 13 stars from the 13 first states.

I do not understand tacit consent: to me, it is like shooting yourself in the foot; but it is a force that we ignore too often.

Administration vs Terrorism

2010-01-08T20:07:00.012-05:00

Image from http://epistemysics.wordpress.com/

So, somebody made a spelling mistake in the name of a terrorist. Mistakes in official documents also happen, according to my experience of 70 years and lots of travels, about ten percent of the times, more so, obviously in countries that are not your own. I have had in turn on my passport/identity/visa forms/driver's license and various permits the wrong first name, the wrong middle name, the wrong date of birth, and one time the wrong sex. Several times, the authorities refused to correct their mistake: it was not in the power of the person handling me the document.And the name Lambert is shorter to spell than Abdulmutallab.
I am quite certain that somewhere in the US archives, somebody has statistics about mistakes done on uncommon and difficult names. And obviously nothing came out of it. As Justin Fox remarked today in his blog, how come the State Department is not equipped to handle this? Police files have many cases of people trying to escape justice by changing themselves a small detail in their own identity, so we must account for our own administrative mistakes plus a number of cheaters.
If you had asked me a few days ago how I imagined the State Department verifies if you have a visa, I would have said: "They probably have a list of similar names coming up with access to your picture, face recognition stuff, prints, possibly coded access to your whole file and the various alerts from different departments, CIA, criminal files, etc." I would also imagine that if you look for a Nigerian who has been a student in Britain, they all come up on the touch of a button.You could check on the list who also has a visa for the US. All this is elementary, so I also hope they get a good intersect with other agencies. Is it too much to ask?

Why is it the way it should work? I do stuff like that all the time with history problems. For instance, if I want to know who was at the US embassy in Vichy during WWII, it comes up, at the touch of a button and in a few minutes work.

Searching is a skill: it can be learned. How educated are people of the State Department in searching? How fast do they find ten red balloons?
How do you do a decent job without a decent instrument? A good no-nonsense search software seems to me more efficient than waterboarding!

Old Money

2010-01-05T07:10:00.007-05:00

The press reported last week that this pastel by Degas was stolen from a Museum in France. It was worth over a million dollars.
It reminded me of a small Degas I saw hanging on the wall of the toilet, in the house of a notable French couple. I was surprised that it was not displayed more prominently. I bluntly asked to the lady of the house if it was genuine. "I would think so" replied the lady dryly. Then I asked why on earth she did exhibit it in the john.
"I just do not like it," she said.
That is the difference between old money and new money.
Old money, you can't fake it.

Front-Page: homage to Bruce Weber

2010-01-02T04:55:00.007-05:00

There is nothing on a front page any more that we have not seen on the web. The French say:"A la une!" meaning: it is important, it is front-page stuff. It is still true, that if there is a big scandal or a national disaster, people buy more newspapers. This has made journalists believe that the front page is what readers are interested in, that it is what sells. Movies have re-enforced this theory, from Bogart to Robert Redford and Denzel Washington. And generations of TV anchors think that their job is to milk the death of Michael Jackson or the last terrorist threat. They call it "investigative journalism". Hmmm. This generation is not like the Nixon generation, people nowadays want excitement, they have no patience for information.

But of course, the front-page is just another myth that contributes to killing journalism. What I see around me, what I have seen since the 1950s, is that people take a cursory glance at the front page and turn immediately to the local weather and the obituaries. These topics are the true bread and wine of the readers.

It is specially true around the new year, when we remember the people we lost, some real friends, and some imaginary ones: actors, artists, musicians who were important to us. My heart misses a beat when I think of Patrick McGoohan, of the Prisoner's fame, or Maurice Jarre, not only for the music of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, but also for all the beautiful work he did for the theater before he came to the US. And then, caricaturist David Levine, brilliantly described by Bruce Weber in the New York Times.

Newspapers could be saved by less romanticism and a more honest look at their readers. Let obituary writers run the front page: it will remind the readers why they still want to buy newspapers.

Happy Long Life!

2009-12-31T11:52:00.008-05:00

Long life to you who have children
Long life to you who have pets
Long life to you who like birds
Long life to you who like to work
Long life to you who know compassion
Long life to you who like to laugh
Long life to nurses, journalists and teachers
Long life to Katherine Jenkins and all people who sing!

Make your own blessing

2009-12-22T14:59:00.007-05:00

There is a fable that all French kids have to know, about an old gardener that everybody mocks because he is planting trees (at his age!)and will not benefit of their shadow; the old man replies that he tastes today the pleasure of planting.
My friend Anne-Marie Costrini is tasting today the pleasure of graduating as a Paralegal. You see her surrounded by her family in the middle of this picture taken by our local television WTOC. She is 91 years old. Anne-Marie still has a job; she is an A student and enjoys studying: she plans to go on and become a lawyer (you can see more about her here
So, if you think that it is too late for anything, shame on you!

Journalist of the month: Borzou Daragahi

2009-12-15T08:17:00.006-05:00

Libya's coup: Turning militants against Al Qaeda
This is the first encouraging paper about terrorism in a long long time. As a Pulitzer finalist, Mr Daraghi does not need the congratulations of my little blog, but this is a fine paper indeed. It baffled me.
Moreover, the Los Angeles Times is one of the best papers in the world for international politics:it is about time I nominate one of their great journalists with this heartfelt thank you.
I did not know that Libya was making any effort of that kind. Seen from here, many countries seem a bit apathetic regarding terrorism, just like for the Israel-Palestinian conflict: it is complicated, and there are people very active at taking advantage of it. People and politicians who thrive in wounds, like fly larvae.

So today, some good news. I needed that.

On Tiger Woods

2009-12-12T09:57:00.003-05:00

Quite a few people made money out of trashing Tiger Woods, with excuses ranging from "the public needs to be informed" to "If I do not do it, somebody else will."
Well, tabloid guys, you should follow Tiger's example: quit that job and become better persons.

Thinking about business

2009-12-06T18:02:00.002-05:00

"... the alpha and omega of business life has become keeping up the share price. Innovation and investment can go hang."

In an interesting paper of Will Hutton in the UK Guardian

It would be funny, if it were not so sad

2009-12-06T08:59:00.002-05:00

you got to read this.
I am not commenting on it: I am speachless

I am almost out of it!

2009-12-01T03:35:00.002-05:00

The Art of the Insult

2009-11-23T11:43:00.003-05:00

I am surprised to see our major newspapers accept comments that are not very helpful: "President Bush is an idiot", "President Obama is a fool"...I think that guys who write like this are wife beaters, always steaming. Are newspapers so afraid of losing their non-paying customers that they do not dare letting go of this mud? To me it is like Hitler showing up around the corner: there are consequences to disrepecting democracy.

I was ready to write a piece on how politics degenerates in this country, but then, when I opened my last issue of The New Scientist, I found that the editor had suppressed about one third of the comments on a paper about some obscure acceleration of a satellite.
There is page after page of: "This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed." I found the reading hilarious: how come readers with most probably a college degree dare insulting one another on a subject that nobody understands?
More wife beaters. I should not be surprised: I met racists and wife beaters in any social category.
Insult used to be more poised a few centuries ago. The Prince of Ligne used to say that Casanova would have been handsome, if he had not been so ugly.
Voltaire once removed his hat when a priest crossed his way. He was asked if he was reconciled with God. "We salute each other, he answered, but we are not on speaking terms."

Journalists of the month Connolly-Murray

2009-10-21T08:06:00.007-04:00

- Doctor, I do have health insurance, but it does not work when I am sick.

This is the first time in months that I think I learned something useful about health care in
8 Questions about health-care reform: Update
Reporting by Ceci Connolly and Shailagh Murray
Here is the link

There is a lot of work behind this paper and the authors make very clear for us what is going on.
Great Job!

Two cents on health care

2009-10-12T08:12:00.002-04:00

As soon as people hear my foreign accent, they ask me about health care in Europe. Is it true that you can wait a whole year for an operation? Is it true that public health care is horrible?
No, it is not true.
All these rumors come from people paid by insurance companies or by extreme right people who have so much political passion that they have become anti-Americans (look at the way they applauded when we did not get the Olympic games!)
I lived 30 years in France and one year in various British Isles and many years in Belgium. The most I ever waited for an operation was about 6 weeks. And then I was treated competently. The most I paid for an operation was about 300 dollars.
Is medicine in Europe perfect? Of course not. For instance, if you are a fifty years old woman, it is hard to find a doctor who would not answer your complaints with: "it must be menopause, do not worry about it"
When I was fifty and in trouble is the only time I really wished I had an interesting prostate. But I am sure it does not happen here, in the paradise of private medicine.

9/11

2009-09-08T20:27:00.001-04:00

It is the exact same pain I feel. Does not seem to subside with time.

Journalist of the month: Noam Cohen

2009-09-01T11:12:00.008-04:00

No contest this month, the most interesting paper for me was written by Noam Cohen in the New York Times: about new trends in the army.
It appears that any army personnel can help re-write or contribute writing army manuals (in the same spirit as Wikipedia).
This is the most important change in the mindset of the army in the last four thousand years, so you should read this.
Somehow it gives me hope that the army, at least ours. is finally growing up. Seriously: the Army might get out of this effort manuals that everybody understands and a more modern treatment of problems.
Bravo!

For an actor, what is the worst that could happen?

2009-08-21T07:47:00.004-04:00

I have been wrong for fifty years: I thought the worst that can happen to an actor is to go undiscovered. I was wrong.
The worst that can happen is to be a good actor playing a would-be writer in a dingy apartment in Queens after 9/11. IF
IF in the next scene, they will show 60 years old Meryl Streep in Paris at noon time, making love with enthusiasm to a bald husband.
I know how the actors Amy Adams and Chris Messina must feel: I was once sitting on a panel with the best people in my field, and I felt like an insect squeezed in the pages of a dictionary.
If you have not seen Julie and Julia yet, race to see it. It may not be the best movie you will ever see, plus it is about Julia Child and yet misses the point of French cuisine, but Meryl Streep will amaze, uplift and enchant you in one of the best performances you will ever see.
Don't miss this.

Inventions that changed my life since the 1940s

2009-08-14T11:57:00.006-04:00

What changed our life? The answer is probably different for every person, because we have different needs. Cell phones, for instance are not on my list. I think that they are a nuisance in the US but helpful in underdeveloped countries.Here is my list.

Because they saved my life:
1. Antibiotics
2. fiber-optic technology. Among many applications, I am specially grateful for the medical ones.

Because they ameliorate social conditions
3. the pill or not the pill: freedom to organize one's life. More than that. knowledge that you can organize your own life.
4. New vegetables. New species of flowers. I still got the gardening guide of my grandmother: it is incredibly poor, compared to what is available today. I am less convinced by modified animals generally made to satisfy greed, rather than the customer.

Because I lived alone most of my life:
5. good quality paint, specially latex paint
6. the invention of home improvement stores which gave women access to DIY
7.Television (like many Europeans, we got our first TV to see the moon landing)

Because I used to be an oceanographer:
8. weather and positioning satellites: it changed everybody's lives not only life at sea
9. Numerical weather predictions: climate models save countless lives every day

Because I am curious:
10. Computers, the internet, blogging
11. Finding black holes at the center of galaxies. That gives more sense to the universe.
12. Access to time. Dating the age of the earth, of artefacts, of climate changes, etc; it is all possible through our understanding of nuclear reactions.
13. the structure of DNA: a first access to the great secrets of life

Small cons downtown: how to steal from the poor

2009-08-10T11:11:00.014-04:00

There are small Ponzis and small cons that seldom make it in the justice system: in Savannah where I live, for instance, small crimes against poor people are committed every day. There is this nice couple trying to sell some exotic fruit juice to a small restaurant owner: it cures cancer, they tell him. I raise my head over my coffee to explain that they have no right to say that. They are defensive: it is on the list of qualities that the juice company manager has recommended to them. They show me the list in good faith: of course it has no name or address on it. I explain to them that they can be sued, not the manager, because they cannot prove the paper came from him. The fruit in question not only cures cancer, but every disease you can think of such as the flu or broken bones.

A more successful con around here is a pyramid: you pay 500 dollars for a lecture (usually about how to get rich), then you find three people who will pay you 500 dollars for the lecture, and your benefit is a thousand bucks. It has to work, right? If it does not work, it is your fault. The victims do not even know that it is an illegal scheme, so they do not complain.

The worst financial crime in Savannah is against black women, although an old white lonely woman is a likely victim too. Why black women? I guess there is in some families a cultural bias, a make-believe that the man has more authority, more competence than the woman. Any woman who believes it is prone to become a victim. Here is how the con works. Imagine a situation, very common around here, where the woman is working and the man is mainly going out and spending money, if he makes any. When comes the time to buy a house, the man says: "Let me take care of it. I know how to deal with this". The sale happens with the name of the man on the deed, no trace of the name of the woman. Later, divorce or separation occurs, and the woman discovers that she has no right to the house. Cases like this are difficult to prove. I have seen four cases without making any research, so it has to be common.

Paper of the month: Tara Bahrampour

2009-07-30T08:17:00.008-04:00

In wake of unrest, Britain replacing US as Iran "Great Satan"
Washington Post, July 17, 2009 You can read this paper here

This is an excellent paper which points out the difficulties we have in understanding not only foreign people but foreign governments.
How we are viewed abroad, and consequently how some government policies can be designed against us is not always based on facts, on good sense or on good information: it can be based on a reputation or on past encounters. In this report, Britain is seen by the Iranian government as the colonial power it was fifty years ago. I believe it: it took me some decades to change my opinion of Germany after WWII. Painful experiences with people or government make it hard to change our point of view.

This example is a good lesson for the US. We should do better with our strategic communications. and indeed restrict the publicity made by the Pentagon: they need the promotion but they are not the best at this; you should read also in the Washington Post, the paper by Walter Pincus (July 28, 2009)about the criticism coming from the House Appropriations Committee on this subject.)

I suggest that we change our image by hiring the people who promote tourism in Ireland: they make everybody want to go to Ireland which is a flat place with its past destroyed, always in bad weather and always on the verge of civil war. They have been consistently successful with this difficult task, therefore they can do anything. They are the best promoters in the world.

Business in need of translation

2009-07-18T07:44:00.018-04:00

Ultimate simplicity: Belgian flag for Belgian beer.
Image from http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/16/beer-flags/

Try this ten days for ten dollars
As seen on TV: Free trial is outmoded, now you can try whatever for a ridiculous price. I find interesting that the two firms using this trick recently never tell you the price of the stuff on TV. Translation: the stuff is so expensive that they wont tell you the real price until it is too late.
Lifetime free replacement of anything
If it is a small business: they plan to go bankrupt immediately after the sale
If it is a big one: the shipping and handling will cover their cost
Ten tools in one
Translation: none of them tools works properly
Do you know your sleep number?
Smartest way to sell an air mattress!
Save 400 dollars with our car insurance
This is hard to translate, because all major companies promise the same thing. It does not make mathematical sense. Unless of course they share the market secretly: you in this state, me in that one, or me the old, you the careful drivers. But of course, they would not do that because it is illegal. Any translation?
Ads with dogs
Do not buy it. The product is not good by itself or it is too expensive. I make an exception for Bush beans, because it is an ongoing story where the dog plays against its traditional role.
Ask your doctor if this medication is good for you
Translation: your risk of being killed by it instead of cured is important.Scratch important, replace by not negligible.
What doctors (or some dealer) do not want you to know
Translation: We intend to make money out of a patsy like you. Because if the stuff worked, the doctors or pharmacists or whatever would sell it themselves, wouldn't they?
As seen on TV: "Post shredded wheat does not believe in progress"
Translation; some stupid pub firm has made a study showing that (a) a lot of ecolo buy the product (b)ecologists are usually conservative.
How many people like me will never buy Post again because of their stupid ad is not factored in.
What it says about CNN or MSNBC, I am not sure. Money pimp?

The romantic governor Sanford

2009-07-02T16:22:00.011-04:00

I was wrong: the lovestruck Governor came back in the news.
I was not impressed when he refused the help of the federal government for his state: the first part of it was fine, honest post-Bush Republican worry about the national debt. The second part: how he was going to deal with South Carolina's problems was totally absent. So, I thought he was not presidential material: either he was unprepared, or he lacked the drive to keep himself informed on unemployment and to take a positive action.
Shortly after that, he disappeared into a lovenest, which is, in my opinion, a problem between his wife and himself, not between the electors and the press.
The only problem I have is that he cannot stop talking. It is hard enough to have your husband saying that another woman is your soul mate, but to say that you are trying to fall back in love with your wife is adding insult to injury.
You think it would stop there. It does not. My guess is that Governor Sanford keeps talking because it is the only way he is still in touch with the woman he loves. So now we are told that he has a book deal? Chucks, it is only on fiscal conservatism, and it fell through. What about how he sacrificed his true love for his constituents?
I am sure his wife would like the book. He is adding a book deal to insult to injury ? To be called a "magnificent Christian woman", under the circumstances, would not cut it for me, I would feel that it means I am sowehow a good person, not a very attractive one.

Many a wife is left wondering how come she never saw that her husband was a prick.

Dealing with new news

2009-06-30T15:11:00.008-04:00

Gov. Sanford, Michael Jackson and troops out of Irak...What do they have in common? They fill the news and then they disappear from the news, as soon as all the juice has been extracted by CNN et al. As one says in French: "Un clou chasse l'autre", that is one nail drives another or more clearly: life goes on.
I have a guess that Gov. Sanford must be one rare happy person about the death of Jackson: it got him off the hook. We got hours and hours and unrequited hours on his confession and his exotic mistress, and then blink! Down to zero. Hours and hours on Jackson. They almost forgot the news from Irak.
Obviously there is no relationship between time on the news and importance of the event. It is all about the perception of how much audience you can get.

I PLEAD GUILTY too: I had completely forgotten about Al Franken. Got a breaking news alert from the New York Times and the Washington Post today telling me that he has won the election. When was the election?
Last year.
How could I forget about Al Franken so fast?

Michael's Jackson's money

2009-06-26T07:24:00.007-04:00

Nobody has said yet what i think about Michael's untimely death. I just think: "another famous black guy who dies without a cent"
It is hard enough for each of us to spend wisely the little money we have, it is extremely hard to handle tens of millions and hundreds of millions when you have no financial education. Agatha Christie had that problem, I remember her saying that there was a moment when the money ceases to be pleasant enough to get and becomes a real hassle.
Michael Caine recently said that when he told his mother that he was earning one million pounds per film, she asked "How much is that?"

Sportsmen are supposed to have some financial education, though sometimes you wonder: I remember baseball player Ricky Henderson who framed a check of one million dollars and let it hang on his wall instead of endorsing it.

Usually it is less funny: very friendly sharks will steal the money from under your feet.
You get talented kids? Send them first to a business school.

Abortion, abortion!

2009-06-03T10:53:00.008-04:00

1. This society is in denial: the fact is that a lot of people do not want to have children and do not like children. The women in these couples get pregnant anyways. It is awful, but it is a fact of life. You prevent abortion, the kid will suffer. Proof? (a) Despite the wonderful efforts and pressures from the anti-abortionists groups, there is a million of neglected and abused children in this country every year. If God prefers one million long-suffering victims to abortion, it is a bizarre God. (b) Every day three children are killed, a good proportion by their own parents.(c) Being pregnant is a major cause of the murder of women committed by their partner.

2. I do not understand why one would kill a doctor to defend life. The reasoning is flaky. Why not start with killing all the guys who abandon their pregnant girlfriend, and all the people who practice incest, and all the guys guilty of rape (about 200,000 a year). Then maybe the anti-abortionists could consider killing all the parents who do not pay child support. I bet we would have less abortions then.

3 The whole debate rakes of hypocrisy: we call pro-choice people who quite often think that they have no choice, and pro-life people who often do not care about the life of children, as long as they are born.

Just in case you wonder about me, I was at the opposite of the problem: found it hard to get pregnant. I would be a happy octoplet mom nowadays, if I had had the hormones for it, the money for it, and the partner for it. But I fell short on these three conditions.

Does torture work? YES it does. It would with me.

2009-05-12T19:50:00.006-04:00

I am getting tired of watching young (compared to me, they are all young) reporters discussing whether torture works or not. Of course it works. I for one would tell anything to my dentist. Any American who is afraid to go to the dentist should understand that torture has a very good chance to work. Let us quit the attitude and use common sense. MOSTLY, it "works": many people would talk.
So, a lot of people are like me and would say anything under duress. Here come the questions:
1) Would I tell the truth or anything to please the dentist and escape the experience? What would you do?
2) Do I know anything interesting? I do not. Most of us do not know squat, and most of our enemies do not know squat. How many people who do not know anything are we willing to torture? Do we even know who is the enemy? In this kind of war, we don't. Where do we stop? Are we going to torture a hairdresser just in case he or she has heard something useful?
3) If torture is so efficient, how come we never learned where was Osama Ben Laden?
4) There has been a vast experience of torture in the last 60 years. Nazis tortured, got good information and lost the war. French tortured, claimed it saved lives and lost Algeria, Britain tortured and did not keep India or Ireland, the KGB tortured and communism lost.

You make your own mind. I think that the strength of Americans is that they can outsmart their enemies.
Let us not forget it: outsmarting is something Americans are good at.

Miss USA's deep thoughts

2009-05-12T18:23:00.002-04:00

Miss California is entitled to her own opinion. If you wait for her advice on any ethical problem, you deserve the opinion you get.

Revamping the CIA

2009-04-22T20:29:00.005-04:00

I have been wondering why it is that the CIA always has a worse rep than their equivalent in other countries. All nations have spies, and all spying institutions sometimes misbehave. We got spy scandals in every democracy I have known in the last fifty years, It goes with secrecy that bad stuff is committed and that a few traitors are somehow generated. We got to keep both down best we can.

So there are scandals galore everywhere: how come the CIA is always the only bad guy in the news? I think it is cultural: Americans are raised to tell the truth, to talk in you face and go for a good fight: dissimulation is just not American. It is not true for the British, who have been raised in the complex heritage of Victorian times: all their education is about keeping to the weather, keeping a straight upper lip and all the restraints of the rules of good conduct. They may like a good fight too, but they understand the need for secrecy much better. As for the French, they have a large practice of double entendre and an unhealthy respect for the authority in place coupled with underlying rage: it is why they always leak information.

But of course we need our spies and they need to be respected. It is time to stop playing "I am a good person because I don't like the CIA". Maybe part of the bad stuff that happened at the CIA did so because they could not recruit in a net large enough. So all these people who felt too good for the CIA are to be blamed too.

It is time for the CIA to have a good image: it will help the institution inside and outside. They should spend a few million dollars on self-promotion. They battled Communism by supporting good anti-communist books, so they know the power of books, they should support themselves with good pro-CIA literature. The trouble with present CIA mystery novels is that they are based on the British model, and it does not quite "take" over here, except if the hero is British. The key, I think, is to put the accent on outsmarting. Let us leak some stories where we have been outsmarting bad guys (there must be leak-free stories, there always are) and pay some popular writers to enhance the CIA image.
I am getting tired of that constant criticism of the CIA: it is like walking on your own foot.

Torture useful?

2009-04-21T22:43:00.001-04:00

All these gallons on water, and we do not know where is Osama Ben Laden.

Torture up close

2009-04-17T09:48:00.005-04:00

People like me, born with WWII, have a different view of torture:it was in conversations so much that it was one of the first words you learned. I remember hearing of a man tortured by the Germans who was forced to count the whipping. It frightened me: I did not know very well how to count then, I must have been four years old. Then came Nurenberg: the American legal team said that torture was forbidden and that you were responsible for your own acts, even if your boss told you to torture somebody. The most awesome was that they did teach that to their own soldiers. Such was the American doctrine. This is why they hanged the main nazis and it is why I wanted to become an American.
In the following decades, most European countries did use torture, usually far away or just far enough from the mainland, in the colonies fighting for their independance (Algeria, Northern Ireland etc.)
When I worked with new colleagues or a new boss, the first question that came to my mind was would they betray me if there was a war? Would they betray you if you were a Jew? Most of them would, you learn to live with that. It is even worse with boyfriends. For anybody else, if a guy betrays you, he is just sleeping around; for me, he might send you to a gas chamber.
It is what happens to the mind of little girls in wartimes. I kept thinking: I want to die in America, where they do not torture anyone.
And finally my dream came true. Good thing I did not die last year.

Political lesbianism

2009-04-14T16:02:00.008-04:00

Yesterday, Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) mentioned a congressman who said publicly that she was a cross-dressing lesbian. It made me laugh: for over 50 years, and I am now reaching 70, I have been a lesbian for all the men to whom I said no, and a whore if I happened to say yes. I thought this was specific of my generation, but it seems that we have now shifted from the general contempt for women to the ultimate political argument. Congratulations, congressman!

It does not say much about Miss Maddow, except that she is feared. It says a lot about the obscure ex-congressman Bob Ney (except that I did not infer that he ended up in jail): it tells me all about his age, his education and the quality of his heart.
HA! has-been congressman, you must have been a stud!

What is the excuse this time?

2009-04-07T16:00:00.010-04:00

My neighbor is born in Claxton, a very small rural community in Georgia. This is a recent picture of hers: she is 93 years old and used to make a living as a hairdresser. She comes from a baptist very religious background, still goes to a nearby church every Sunday. She is a firm Republican.
YET
1) Whatever GA was 100 years ago, there is not a hint of racism in her.
2) She says that gay people should be left in peace because it is not their fault and it is nobody's business anyway.
3) She feels that you got to respect your country and your government, even if you disagree with the president.

And I wonder from under which rock crawled these guys who say that President Obama is Satan, that we should not teach in school the real age of the earth and that it is "dangerous" to announce that we want to treat other countries with respect!

Incompetence in democracy

2009-03-26T17:03:00.010-04:00

I was puzzled today too: a certain amount of incompetence goes with our electoral system. I asked myself the same question as yesterday about flaming incompetence. I have been following Secretary Geithner on C-Span while he goes from committee to subcommittees in congress. Of course, he has adversaries, of course some representatives or senators are intent on reading their questions and do not listen to his answers, but frankly, there is a significant number of them who visibly do not understand the answers at all. You can see that at the way they try to repeat their question as if Geithner or Bernanke were deaf.
You do not have to know much about government and specially finance to be elected to Washington: it is the idea. It is a very healthy system: I do not want to be governed by an elite of scientists, bankers and philosophers (specially not Aristotle). First, there are just as many racists within Nobel prizes than the rest of us; then there is no more morality: look at the arrest this month of a college professor who planned to rape a five years old girl (he is 62 years old). Third. a lot of the people we elect are extremely competent: they may look stupid in general assembly, but they certainly impress me in most committees.
Except for finance matters. The economy is confusing because it is largely a matter of ideology and because it has its own vocabulary (like normal for a statistician is not normal for a normal person). We all learned quickly what is a toxic asset and a subprime mortgage, but it is more difficult to get through a sentence like this: "The SEC should share the reports that it receives from the funds with the systemic risk regulator, which would then determine whether any hedge funds could pose a systemic threat and should be subjected to the prudential standards outlined above." We get the idea, sort of...who is which?
All I can think of is to tell Mr Geithner and Mr Bernanke: could you please try to have your reports translated in common English without looking paternalistic? It would help you.

Do not tell God what to do

2009-03-25T19:56:00.001-04:00

I was puzzled today. I usually follow the very slow progress of teaching evolution in our school system, and I found this despaired comment: "Somehow, we have a system that gives flaming incompetents this kind of power — that we willingly hand over important decisions about the education of our children to people who aren't qualified ..."from PZ Myers on his blog. You do not have to be an educator to be on the board of education: it is the idea and it is a good idea. However, positions on any board of education are not well advertised and not very interesting, because there is so much pure administration: there is no wonder that many people who get there have an agenda of their own. And frankly, they are not well educated, so they do not know what is a good education. I must say, however, that contrary to my fellow scientists, I resent much more creationists for trying to tell God what to do and how to do it than for misunderstanding the science behind evolution.
It is worth maybe having a second look at that system of boards of education: maybe just making it more attractive would do the trick.

The other side of President Bush

2009-03-19T09:23:00.005-04:00

I spent the years under President Bush more baffled than anything else: most of the time it was not clear to me how what he decided would help us, for instance despising European countries, delaying any decision about climate change, listening to conversations of American citizens, promoting "preventing wars": you name it, there was always something bizarre in what he did, something slightly "off", when it was not outright wrong..It left me with an impression of the man that was not satisfying. I thought he lacked judgement,sensitivity, good sense, and that most of his thinking was done by other people.
Well, I was wrong: since he left office, I have seen a very elegant side of the ex-president. He did his best to facilitate power transfer, refused to talk against president Obama, and there are moments when sweet petty revenge must be tempting. He said that he was moved by the emotion of people when President Obama was elected: it shows a heart that I had not seen before. And he refused to pardon Scooter Libby, which showed a personal backbone that I did not think he had.
Plus this: anybody who says he loves his country more than politics wins my heart.
So there is a good chance that the poorly rated president Bush will make a great ex-President. He would not be the first: Carter achieved that.
I am crossing my fingers.

Stolen art and forgotten art

2009-03-17T10:22:00.013-04:00

I am still mourning the loss of art that happened in Iraq. When I was young the US was always praised in Europe for the care it took of protecting art and giving it back to European countries (see for instance here. It is in Mesopotamia that writing was first invented, so museums there are specially precious to me. But of course there are art thieves everywhere, and not enough money to find back all the stolen art.
There is also the fact that great art is sometimes ignored. Here is a short story about that.
The barefoot sergeant
For Dr Omoigui

The hero of my story was born in Benin City; in a country we now call Nigeria. It is way south, much more south than Miami, almost at the Equator and way, way across the Atlantic Ocean, in Africa. When he was born, the family elders held a meeting and discussed how he should be named, according to what was on their mind. Part of the family wanted him to be named "It has not rained this season" and another part wanted his name to be "Evil runs amongst men", because there was war and there was little crop, and everybody felt terrible. But his mother thought that these names were awful, and wanted something nicer. In the end, they decided to call him Edo, and that is what he was, a member of the Edo group, talking the Edo language and living in Edo country.
In Benin City though, one waits for the baby shower to announce the name of a child. Then, the mother teases her friends by inventing all kinds of ridiculous names for the child:
"We are going to call him Palm Tree in the Sky"
"This is not a good name", her friends would say, "Who ever heard of somebody called Palm Tree?"
"Well then, we are going to call him Eye of the Moon"
"O frankly what is it with you: it is not a name for a little boy"
And so it goes, and everybody is joking, and finally the father and mother whisper together, and the real name of the little boy comes out:” His name will be Edo Edo".
And then one opens a coconut, which represents the mystery of life, for who understands how milk goes into the wooden fruit of the coconut? And then there is a feast.
So, Edo Edo was born and named. He grew up like any other little boy, got married, and needed to make a living. Edo was too shy to be a good businessman, and not talented enough to be a great artist -artists were very praised in Benin. He decided that he would serve the British, who were in power at the time. He became a sergeant, I am not sure if it was in the army or in the police, but I do know that it was close to the highest rank any black person could achieve in the British system. He was only twenty-four years old.
It was Edo's day. We are not all destined to be famous, like the inventors of Aspirin, the last Oscar winners, the fastest runner of the year or the mathematician who just got the Fields medal. And how many of us remember their names anyway?
All of us, however, have our day in life: For some it is the day they fall in love, for some the day they buy a house, for some the day they finally retire. It is what we mean when we say that every dog has his day. Edo's day was the day he became a sergeant.

And this is what made of it an extraordinary story. You would never guess what Edo did. Edo went to an artist in Benin City and asked for his statue to be made. It is not something that any Sergeant would think of over here. Because in America, when it is your great day, you take pictures or you make a video. People with more money sometimes call a painter to get a painting of themselves. But even rich Americans rarely think of getting a sculpture of themselves to celebrate the big event of their life. It was different in Benin City. Sculpture had been a major art form for maybe eight centuries; the King was always represented in bronze and surrounded by bronze artifacts. Happily for Edo's dream, the king had allowed the artists in town to tackle more profane subjects than Himself, for the King was related to the Gods, and had the power to decide who was worthy of a statue.
So this is what Edo did: he ran to the house of one of the artists in town and commissioned his statue to be made in bronze. Financially, it was foolish: bronze was expensive, and he had to pay in advance 11 pounds of metal.
Edo insisted that his uniform would be perfectly reproduced and that of course his face would be easily recognized. The sculptor first made a body of clay, and then he applied wax on it and sculpted directly in the wax all the details of Edo's face and uniform. Wax allowed all details to be easily and precisely carved. Then the sculpture was covered with the finest clay; the mould was done. The sculptor heated the mould and let all the wax melt and go out by a little hole. Melted bronze filled the void left by the wax and when the bronze alloy finally cooled off, the mould was broken, and the bronze statue appeared.
Most of Edo's family was there and had a great meal while waiting, eating yams and goat meat with an okra sauce. When the statue appeared, everybody agreed it was magnificent.
I do not know when Edo died. Maybe later in life in Burma, where a lot of soldiers under British rule went from Africa, probably much earlier, because nobody lives long in Nigeria, and it is very unlikely that Edo ever saw the Queen of England visiting his regiment. His family was dispersed, and the British uniform became a sign of shame in a country all entranced by the idea of independence. My husband used to say this: “Some of us die along the path of history, some of us die across it.” When you die across the path, you are soon forgotten. Hence, Edo's statue was sold to an art dealer who was buying anything he could find to fill a whole container and hoped to make a fortune in Europe.
The statue came to London and was bought as part of a lot by an antique dealer. It is where I saw it, in 1972, for the first time. My mother and I had come from France on a shopping trip. We entered that dark place, which was huge and filled with furniture, stuff too big for us to transport, so we were disappointed and heading out when I noticed a bizarre object holding a door open. I picked it up; it was a heavy statuette, almost black in color, portraying a young African. I had never seen anything like that. I went to the dealer and asked what it was. He looked embarrassed.
"O this? This is nothing, really. It is a statue from Benin, but it has no value. They are only valuable if they were made before 1897."
I did not know it at the time, but this is when the British took several thousands art pieces from the King's palace and sold them at an auction in Germany to pay for the expenses related to pacifying the country. It is exactly what we wanted to do in Irak: the population always needs to pay for unrequited pacification.
I said that I liked the statue, although it was difficult to see the details of it. "It is not for sale, said the shy dealer, nobody would be interested in it, we sell them to a foundry for the price of bronze". You would think that the British have some respect for the people who fought for them, but they don't. Nor do the French who are more embarrassed by- than proud of- the Algerian Harkis who fought by their side. Foreigners are always foreigners.
My mother and I thought that it was very sad to have the statue destroyed and melted again. We asked if we could buy it. As I said before, bronze alloy is expensive, close to 10 dollars a pound nowadays. The dealer put the statue on a scale and told us the price, and my mother and I had to combine our British shillings and dimes to complete the sale. It was heavy. I carried our suitcases to the boat, and my mother carried the statue and complained all the way. Once at home, we washed the statue with soap and water until it looked golden again and I waxed it lightly. The statue had been left unfinished: all the little defects that come from the lost wax process had not been smoothed out, maybe by lack of time or money. Maybe Edo was so impatient that he took the statue with him immediately.
Here was our Edo, with real big eyes and the most beautiful smile you could see: the smile he had when he was made a sergeant. And one could see that the uniform was carefully done, and that Edo posed with his hands just as the army requested them to be. He had long limbs and a surprisingly large butt, the kind that is called callipyge (beautiful one) by the dreamers and steatopyge (fat one) by other people. Partly, it was a decision of the artist to create these details: large eyes, long torso, big smile. The artist wanted everything bigger than life. Most of the bronze must have been used for these features, because there was little bronze left for the feet, which appeared thin and porous.
The little sergeant had no shoes. Most of the black members of the British army (this must have been the West African Frontier Force) had no shoes until the Second World War. Some say that the local British officers stole the shoes' money, some say that the white officers wanted to humiliate the black soldiers, some say that the black soldiers did better without shoes, because they were not used to wear shoes or boots. And as you surely know, it was tough leather that was used at the time: the American army has had to soften the soldiers' shoes several times in the last fifty years, because modern little soldiers are used to soft shoes and blister easily.
Who is to know precisely how come Edo had no shoes, while according to army regulations, he should have had them? All I know is that this part of the British army went without shoes until the Second World War, when Emmanuel Cole, a civil rights hero similar in many ways to Rosa Parks, revolted. While he was a gunman in Sierra Leone, in 1939, he refused to serve until he had boots like the white soldiers.
It was timely: who would want to go barefoot to Burma?
Edo's statue came with me to live in America. For a chance encounter, it would have been melted and forgotten, but here is the barefoot sergeant of a disbanded army, fighting forgotten wars in a forgotten country where they do not even teach his language any more.
Some people still discuss how many treasures were taken from Benin in 1897, I do not know of anybody who cares how many 20th century Benin statues were discarded and melted. There is not much left of their century: millions of deaths, ethnic wars, AIDS, children sold as slaves, - no, there is not much left of them, not much art either. Behind this, there are many stories of cruelty and injustice.

But Edo was lucky: his image lives in America. He had his day in a dog's life, just like we all do, and now he smiles his beautiful smile and if you come to our house, we will show him to you.

Blinding views in the press

2009-03-15T17:13:00.005-04:00

There are in the press a few things that I find really tiresome.

Bernard Madoff is ashamed. Really? At his age? After all these years?
It makes me think of "Nixon was just a political victim, everybody does that". People who say this are well intentioned, but they have never listened to the tapes.

A.I.G. Planning Huge Bonuses NOT AGAIN?

If we do not do anything, the economy will recover by itself. Well, yeah, it is like you pollute an estuary, you still have crabs: "mother nature takes care of herself". And five millions unemployed? It is "the price we pay" for progress?

Museums (ruined by the economy and some just by Madoff) have to sell works of art to survive. If that is all the imagination they have, it is time to fire their CEOs. The New York State Legislature had apparently the same feeling, because they just introduced a new bill to prevent that. See in the NYTimes here an excellent paper by ROBIN POGREBIN. It made me want to meet Richard L. Brodsky who drafted the bill, and it is not very often that I want to meet a politician! I wish legislation like this would appear in every State.

I see that our senators are all excited by "Financial literacy". I am all for it. Who do you think will teach us? The broker or the banker?

Journalist of the month: Gary Marx

2009-03-01T17:12:00.007-05:00

Every month I praise a journalist who has been teaching me something that I will remember: journalists need some encouragement in today's crisis. Of course I usually try to pick somebody who just started. This month is different: the author, Gary Marx already had a brilliant career.
He wrote a piece in the Chicago Tribune that you can find here. The piece was recommended to me by my stumble friend Dan360 it is about the supermax prison of Tamms.The paper is superb and has stunning photographs.

I have a beef with the US jail system since I proposed to the local jail to give lessons in science and financial education and I was told that "only religious leaders were allowed to talk to convicts".
By contrast to jail, in a supermax prison, you find extremely bad people. I am under no illusion, because I was once victim of a psychopath; some people are evil and should be kept apart under lock and key. In the present state of science, they cannot be cured. Is it a reason to treat them like cattle? I do not see why, because I do not see what we gain from this: it is shameful.

To tell you the truth, I have worked all my life, and I resent people who do not work the best they can. So, not only they are bad people and we got to lock them up and feed them, but they do not contribute to society? We all work, not just to feed our family but to help each other. One person prepares bread, and one transports it, and one repairs the roads, and one builds houses: we all depend on each other, it is what makes this society successful. What kind of politics is it that makes the taxpayer pay through the nose to humiliate a bunch of evil guys for the next fifty years and then prevents prisoners to contribute to society the little they can? We have enough charities around that need help.
Prisons where I live, in GA, cost us a fortune,- we got half a million people in the system, and many people come out of it worse than they went in, despite the visits of religious leaders (but not scientists) of all kinds: it is time lost for them and for society. We should force them to learn: often they go to jail because they never learned anything. And if they are on the list of evil guys, by all means let us keep them locked and make them work.

There is in the bunch of prisoners a good proportion of people affected by mental diseases that could be cured. It makes sense to me that they are legally responsible, but it does not make sense that they are not treated when we can do it. Does it makes sense to you?

Bad people should learn and work like the rest of us and they should be shown as much humanity as security allows. Because humanity is what they do not have.

Corruption everywhere

2009-02-18T13:56:00.009-05:00

OK, after every election, there is a cleaning up factor plus of course rumors that are shown later to be untrue. But I cannot remember an election followed by the discovery of so many bad guys in so many high places and in so many fields (I do not claim that these bad guys belong to any political party, I am just surprised that we got so many popping up).
There is of course the wave of investment schemes like Madoff followed by Allen Stanford. We are over 60 billions dollars for these two, which explains that the many millionaires recently arrested by the FBI do not make headlines: Canadian George Georgiou (a fraud of only 26 millions so far), David Gwin from Colorado (only a multi-million dollar fraud scheme), Niketa Williams, of San Francisco, California (condemned for wire fraud to reimburse 1.6 million dollars), Robert Miracle, of Bellevue, Washington, Mukhtar Kechik and Fahimi Fisal (operating a $65 million Ponzi scheme, five people in Oklahoma (for a fraud over 41 millions), Scott Luster from Missouri (only a 4.5 million fraud) all of them arrested in February alone. What is a million dollars nowadays? Not much, of course, it is easy to spend, but in my neighborhood it is still the value of about ten houses. All these frauds add up to a lot of money lost by innocent people. On the budget I am on, I could feel the difference when a thief took off with my purse and less than 100 dollars in it. Ponzi schemes are very common at all financial levels: here in Savannah GA I find that I frequently have to explain it to naive and uneducated people in my neighborhood: there is always a false prophet or a false friend ready to take advantage of the poorest people.

We are all aware of the housing problems, but there is also a lot of pure mortgage fraud. In the first 20 days of February alone, we see cases popping up in Missouri, in Maryland, in Florida and in New York.

I have been surprised to see educators on the take too. It ranges in the last few months from a Professor of Western Kentucky University misusing Federal money to people accused of embezzlement, bribery, corruption, kickback and racketeering.

And to top it all, we now get judges on the take in activities so mean that it is hard to comprehend. Two Pennsylvania judges have been charged in a fraud scheme involving the placement of juveniles in juvenile detention facilities. The two judges "jailed juveniles for profit". You can read that story in the New York Times here and here

And there are the things that we seem unable to correct: dishonesty in sports, 30 million Americans on illegal drugs, enormous frauds in medicare-medicaid, and the horrible abuse of the military by their suppliers (The military are easy victims: it is the same all over Europe).

I am not claiming that we, ordinary people, are perfect, just saying that we, ordinary people, do not want to hurt other people. Some of the public sense of morality has degenerated in the US since the 1980s. Maybe too much easy money- easy credit produces that. Maybe it is a side effect of women having to work instead of staying at home, maybe it is linked to increases in separation and divorces, maybe it is the increasing disparity between the poor and the rich so lavishly exposed on TV. Maybe all of it. What I do know is that it starts early: most kids, according to surveys, cheat at school. But we got to reduce this corruption before we fall like the Roman Empire or the British and French Empires once dominating the world and brought down by their own rot.
This corruption is going too far.

Michael Phelps' mistakes

2009-02-04T09:56:00.007-05:00

It was not his first pipe, was it? I would not even know how to hold the stuff. I doubt very much his apology: it was written by a lawyer and a press agent (2 allusions to his young age in a few sentences are a dead give away).
But his main mistake was to consider all that money coming in as a reward. It is just a JOB, buddy.
Princess Diana made the same mistake too: marrying a prince is not a fairy tale: it is a job.
Any job comes with a few do and don't, and if you are a public figure, the list of don't is not difficult to understand.

The bizarre ways of Detroit: no cheap car?

2009-02-02T08:14:00.012-05:00

A car for less than $ 7,000? I keep wondering why we do not have a simple cheap car. The Europeans have one: it is called the Chevrolet Matiz.In fact there is a French one that is cheap but looks sleek too: Renault has a nice car called la Logan.

Fiat has a smaller, cheaper car and India has promised a car for about $ 3,000 (the Tata Nano) but it has been delayed by trouble with the recession and with their factory site.
I used to have the funniest small van when I was in France, it was a GME with Japanese and German parts sold by Opel. It was perfect: you could access your stuff from the sides, the front, the back and it had an incredible capacity for accepting weird shaped objects, dogs and cats: I filled it up when I moved to the US from France and went gaily to the airport with all my stuff. It was so narrow that you could touch the right side window without moving from your seat. The van was also high. As a result, if there was wind, you felt like sailing rather than driving! Apart from that, it was a little marvel. But as long as Detroit is convinced that everybody loves big SUVs except me, there is little hope to have a fun car around here.

Watergate and other mistakes

2009-01-31T17:08:00.006-05:00

There was today an interesting paper about Watergate and the tapes transcripts by Patricia Cohen in the New York Times.

When you have a job and kids, you listen to the news, have a look at the paper, but you never have the time to study a political subject in depth. That is how a lot us ignore the facts an dwelve into conspiration theories or faulty judgments. For example, I never believed that I was told the whole truth about what happened to Apollo 13: every day when the accident happened the news stories were confusing and there was no objective link between all the things that went wrong: no explanation. It did not dawn on me that nobody knew at the time what was going on ; I only understood what happened when Tom Hanks, blessed his soul, made a movie about it.
During Watergate, I misjudged what happened because I candidly believed what the White House was saying. It did not come to my mind that the President of the United States would tell blatant lies. Since I retired, I had the time to read about 15 books on Watergate, and then I bought the tapes. You got to listen to the original tapes, though they are very difficult to understand, because listening to a "reading" by an actor gives you a very different take of what was said.
For what it is worth, here is what I think about Watergate:
1) Republicans who say that Nixon was a victim because "everybody else does it" never listened to the tapes. It is like saying nowadays that everybody is a Blagojevich: only fascists would say that.
2) President Nixon often sounds very uncertain, seeking advice: he lowers his voice, leaves his sentences unfinished and sounds rather pitiful. His "advisers" never have the guts to give him any advice at all. I do know that Nixon did not like to be contradicted, so this may be a catastrophe of his own making, but at some times President Nixon sounds unbearably lonely and surrounded by cowards.There is a lot of Richard III in Nixon, from the paranoia to Despair and die!
3) The tapes are extremely difficult, and instead of attacking Stanley I. Kutler for errors and omissions, one should just publish corrections and be thankful to the man. But of course it is less conductive to publicity than to attack him.
4) Howard Dean comes out as the worst lawyer in the history of mankind. And not a very decent person to boot.

Best paper of the month: JULIE CRESWELL, LANDON THOMAS Jr.

2009-01-25T12:15:00.007-05:00

There are always great papers on the international scene, but I had trouble finding a good paper made in the USA this month. Of course, the inauguration of a new President gets so many expected comments, not much stands out.

I was very pleased to find in the New York Times a paper entitled The talented Mr Madoff, by Julie Creswell and Landon Thomas Jr. It presents Madoff as a psychopath, a possibility I examined here too. There are only two ways to detect a psychopath: you studied them because it is your job, or you have been the victim of one, which gives you more needed insight.
There was a paper earlier in the NYT by Allen Salkin (Jan 16th) about Madoff and his frat brothers: people hardly remembered him; it is interesting to note as it was also a a characteristic of The Talented Mr Ripley, one of the best descriptions of a psychopath in literature. Mr Madoff ruined many personal friends of his: he used their loyalty against them. It is also very typical: a psychopath sees your friendship for him as your weak point and thrives on his victories over you.
There is an old guy like that living on my street: everybody thinks that he is a nice person. But he once told me that the best moment of his life was when he was very young: he had built a kite with a razor blade attached to it, and he used it to cut loose the kites of the other children. The children would cry and run to their mothers, but they did not guess that he was responsible for the disaster and it amplified his fun.

The old man has not changed: he did not have the education of Madoff, so he is reduced to play lesser games, such as stealing mail and letting his dog run after the neighbor's cats.

Robert Gibbs: torture, outsmarting the bad guys

2009-01-22T11:21:00.009-05:00

It is ironic that I came to this country because it was against torture: I was not sure about any other country, but I was sure about this one. I found it extraordinary that many journalists today seem to imply by their questions to Robert Gibbs that torture is the only way to acquire knowledge of the enemy. Of course it is not: do not believe an instant that the CIA is powerless without torture!
I had in the past worked for several human rights agencies and collected stories from people who had been tortured East, in communist countries, and in Greece under the colonels and West, specially in South America, and South from Spain to Iran to South Africa. Keeping notes of torture was a despairing job: torture was almost everywhere in the 70s, but it was nothing like seeing the results with your own eyes. I do remember people with burns, people without nails, and people with arms or legs torn and unusable: I still have nightmares filled with blood. The Prime Minister of the “New Yugoslavia” was once interrogated about Kosovo, in London, and answered: "All history books should be kept away from children." This gave me a bitter pleasure.

To me the Nazis tortured and lost the war, the British and the Americans used another weapon: they outsmarted them.

When each generation comes to war, there is a temptation to save lives by forcing some people to talk under torture. It is easy to find young men who believe that by torturing, they achieve a greater good, save lives of their countrymen, protect their own. And then, they are not sissies; they have to do what has to be done. The discourse is successful in any country. It was in France in the 60’s, a country that has many faults but is generally considered civilized.
The problem is that we never really know who knows, so we torture innocent people. The problem is that most of our enemies don’t know squat, and they tell us what we want to hear. The problem is that with each wrongdoing, each atrocity, we create a century of hate. I know exactly what the Germans did to my family in 1914. Armenians know exactly what the Turks did. Black people remember their history. You will have a hard time finding Japanese Americans who do not know that their grandparents were in camps during the war. None of us wants to forget 9/11. It is a pity that each generation has to be explained this again and again and again, and that so many governments hide bad deeds, poor administration and stupid revenge under the guise of a need for information.
Legal wartime behavior is not easy to achieve: there is the pressure of war, the rage of seeing your friends killed, the fear, the sense of urgency. So I do not condemn soldiers who go too far: wanting to pummel somebody’s face to get to the truth is very human. What I criticize is the executive for its lack of vision and for the lack of training in appropriate techniques of war when it will boil down to man-to-man contact.
What do we want after the war ends? All wars end. It used to be that Americans, specially the army, were admired worldwide for their restraint as opposed to the Nazis’ immorality and for the way they carefully protected works of art in all of Europe during wartime. We seem to have lost our interest in protecting art.
At the end of the day, let us be efficient and use restraint, protect children, protect history, protect art. But let us also outsmart the bad guys. We got a weakness there that waterboarding never compensated for.

The perfect car

2009-01-19T08:57:00.004-05:00

I understand that engineers want to add a television, a GPS, an all electric/gasoline choice, an automated parking, all kinds of electronic controls (the more the better), electric windows which change tint with the sun and a seat that calculates the best position for you. It was all in Detroit and it is not what I want.

I want a small basic car light but secure with very low gas consumption, a tight turning circle, a low repair expectancy and a cost of less than 7,000 dollars.

Am I the only customer for it?

Madoff and Scott Peterson : psychopaths at large

2009-01-17T07:52:00.010-05:00

You remember Scott Peterson who killed his wife Laci and unborn child? Everybody said he was such a nice reliable young man. Some children have a knack for discovering how to please, and everybody likes them. Sometimes such children develop as unique Pleasers. That is what they live for: approval, until one day they have forged a personality that they present to the world and they have no idea who they really are.
It is like they have developed an outside envelope at such a price that there is nobody inside: no plan, no guidelines, no empathy, no principles, not much emotion, little feelings. Some rotten trees are like that: only the bark holds them up. They remain unnoticed for a long time amongst other trees.

There is lot of that in the Madoff couple: Mr Madoff did not even invest for his clients at all: his swindle was deliberate from the get go. It makes him a very different guy from somebody who started lying after his affairs went south. That is the difference between a psychopath and a dishonest man. Mrs Madoff was probably all about appearances too: she had a ghost writer for a cookbook published under her name because it was "fun". So the Madoffs were a couple united by their outside shell.

How do you discover that somebody is a psychopath? You cannot: all the external signs are fooling you. Unless of course, you have been victimized before: then you learn to pay attention to all the small signs that tell you if there is a person inside.

Maddening madddening maddening

2009-01-14T08:11:00.007-05:00

Some small things make me mad. You got to read this paper (wow, this is great journalism under a bad title) from Peter Finn in the Washington Post: so it appears that the office of military commissions has accidentally withdrawn the charges against everybody at Guantanamo Bay and had to refer them again?
Is there any limit to incompetence?

Ways to treat civilians in Afghanistan

2009-01-13T09:22:00.013-05:00

This from a CNN documentary. You could see some American soldiers coming to a remote village of Afghanistan armed to the teeth. They came with a translator and asked if there was any terrorist around. My heart bleeds for these soldiers, because I think that the way they have been told to act is not right and that it puts them in more peril than it should.
What would you think if you were an old Afghan peasant who never saw a foreigner before? Now suppose you yourself go to work and there is a Martian there with big weapons asking you if there are terrorists around? What would you say?
A lot of Afghans have no idea what a terrorist is to start with. It is not the right question, because Afghan have a whole series of subdivisions in their mind, and Talibans is too big a word: some they like, some they dont. Explain that you are there for peace, ask them if there are problems with robbers or armed people that you can help with, but asking for terrorists or even Talibans directly are not good words and it is no way to start a conversation. It is like saying we came to kill more neighbors of yours, not a great idea.

You know this, but people forget: there is a cultural difference between people who live from agriculture and city people. You can see that in the United States: the values, the rhythm of life, the politics are different. In general, agricultural societies are more set in their ways and live more by rules, because they see less diversity.

I did work next door to an Afghan young man many years: we were in France; he could not go back to his country thanks to the Russians. He was a very peaceful and nice gentleman with no sense of time. He was also very sensitive to what is polite and what is not: it is basic in all agricultural societies. There are ways to talk to people. Many years ago, I worked in Ireland and I observed the same thing: the sense of time was not the same as mine, and the rules of politeness could not be overlooked. In Ireland, for instance, it is impolite to ask a direct question before you have a conversation, it is why Gallup answers were so unreliable at the time: many people considered that the method was offensive; I do not know if that has changed. My guess is that it has not changed much in the western part of the island.

The mistake here is to come as a bare army: why on earth, at least on the documentary I saw on CNN did not they come to a remote small village with some elders from the next village, it they were willing? They would, as a courtesy, because they are very polite and neighborly people, and they want to protect visitors. They would of course if they did not think of us as the new invader. To say the least, soldiers need to come with more people in civilian clothing: people that old civilans can relate to. It takes more time, but it is the way it should be done: make friends here, go to the next place. Why on earth are our soldiers not told to have a conversation before they ask about terrorists? If there was one in the surroundings, the elders would not tell us anyway, because the perception of us is not good, so it is just as well to spend five minutes talking about the weather and the fact that we are on a peaceful mission, and ask if they have enough food. It is basic politeness, folks. Being blunt and efficient is not the way Afghans work.

I am not saying that all Afghans are "nice", I know that there is a lot of armed people and small tribes of thugs, drug dealers and terrorists, but how are we going to find them in that difficult terrain if we behave like the Russians? There is a U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual that every soldier should read: it is full of good advice, and it is not that complicated; in one sentence: Talk to people as if they were your grandparents, but do not believe that they will behave as your grandparents would.

We need the population to help us, and it will not, if we do not respect its customs and if they do not understand what we want. Let me recommend the book of LCOL John A. Nagl Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. It is a fantastic read for anybody interested in our success in Afghanistan. If one of your loved ones is in Afghanistan, send this book over: it could save lives.

New Sacrifices? Lower Salaries? or New Aims?

2009-01-12T18:19:00.017-05:00

Please follow my reasoning before jumping in the air:
1) I am all for sacrifices when they are required and lowering salaries to keep one's job. Got to do what we got to do.
2) I am all in favor of other countries doing better, specially in the third world. If young people in the Islam world had a job, we would have less suicides and less terrorists. Peace comes with opportunities, criminal minds are forged in despair with the money of some misfits. It means that I am against protectionism: historically, it never did us any good.
3) Nobody has demonstrated that if we are more miserable, the other countries will do better for it. In fact most economists do not believe that. So let us encourage the others countries to go up, that is good for everybody, but do not let us go down: it is bad for everybody.
4)Illegal immigration is a new form of slavery: it is cheap work and no taxes and no rights. I am against it. It is just as immoral as slavery. But I am against the hypocrisy behind it all: how come these guys find jobs? Who gives them jobs? We should be clear: we still need the work of a lot of immigrants that are here: then they should have the same rights as anybody. It is better to give a tax relief to some categories of employers than to close our eyes on illegal immigrants because the American employers could not pay their social security. And the rest should not be here as a constant menace for security and the organization of society. If nobody lied about this, it would be easy to solve. All that talk about punishment and rewarding illegality is jazz. It is millions of people. Let us solve this.
5) I strongly believe that a person working hard for 8 hours a day should have enough money to survive. If you work, you should not wear the stamp of poverty. I found a good site where you can see how much money you need in any state. Verify here:
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/
You select your location, the number of people you are responsible for, and they give you a number. It is not complicated. Survival money should be the basic salary: in many places, it is not..
6) How come so many people have to work two jobs? Because businesses are in for the money. It is their legal responsibility to bring as much money to the stockholders as they can. We are a bit between a stone and a hard rock: communism we do not want because it does not work and brings endless miseries of all kinds (including the death of democracy), on the other hand capitalism is only about greed. Today's capitalists who say that everything works out in the end do not take into account the cost of human misery; they are a bit like the 19th century priests in Europe claiming that workers suffer now to get paradise in the end.
7) So we need businesses and industries to develop a conscience at the same time as they come out of the economic mess. There have been many examples in the past and until now of a conscience in small to big firms, and some have been the stuff of legends like Hershey or Ben and Jerry. But they became legends because they were the exception.
8) We need to look at the new list of Fortune 100 best companies to work for and study these companies to come up with a chart of business morality.
Then we need to teach it in business schools and try to enforce it: it is not just about money. It is about avoiding to create another generation of business people who behave like psychopaths, because that is what they learn in business schools.
9) The time to do that is now: we must regain ethics at the same time as we regain customers. Waiting for the economic recovery hoping that we can ameliorate workers situation "later" is a pipe dream.These steps have to work out together.
10)We should also look in our own closets. How come we spend so much time on TV and in our lives talking about obesity rather than talking about our own kids? What kind of society is this with one million children abused and neglected every year, and thirty million people who take illegal drugs regularly?

Too young, too old, no experience, lacks skills, overskilled?

2009-01-10T11:34:00.009-05:00

Unemployment was for most of my life much larger in European countries than in North America. So, here, you had a chance to hear that you were skilled and good to work with, whereas in Europe, finding a job has always been an unpleasant journey.
This unpleasantness is coming to America.
I was too young at 25 and too old at 40. I have been lacking experience, and an instant later I was told I was overskilled. And soon enough, my skills became obsolete. Then I was a "woman" and I was going to get pregnant (it is not legal to say it any more, don't imagine they do not think it any more). And if you are part of a minority, disabled, or just a small size person, your prospect is worse even if that does not have anything to do with the position you apply for. Handling rejection can be tough: you got to think it has nothing to do with you while always trying to get better at obtaining a job: it is a fine line.

I always found work, though. I would say it is because:
1) I am pretty sure I am good at what I do.
2) I am obstinate: I kept trying.
3) I am not picky: a little money is much more than nothing, and a small job away is better than no job here.
4) I have been very lucky.

There was a neat discussion of unemployment numbers in the Curious Capitalist. If you wonder how so many people are unemployed and do not even look for a job, think of it this way: it is like arthritis, one gets used to it, because it is a human skill of survival to get used to bad things. In cases like this, it can be deadly: I have seen friends losing appreciation for how to dress for a job, when to get up for a job, how to talk to the boss and how to look for a job altogether. So it is best to keep trying.

Never bring a blog post to a gunfight: kill the EITC

2009-01-06T08:34:00.005-05:00

The excellent blog of the Curious Capitalist earned this comment from a reader called Dumdedumdum: Never bring a blog post to a gunfight I like that. Of course it will have to be about taxes. Here is what bothers me about the earned income tax credit.
I thought, until I came to America, that the French tax system was the most ridiculous in the world. I changed my mind: the American tax system is to say the least, the most bizarre. So I had to register to one of these free tax courses to become a tax preparer in order to understand what is going on.Disclosure: I am a democrat, what I want to show is that the best intentions do not always suffice.
Take the celebrated earned income tax credit (EITC). The generous idea to encourage people with low salaries and to help them is fine with me. But in Savannah, most people who benefit this have little capacity in mathematics. They want the largest earned income possible, which leads them to the unwanted conclusion that they do not want to work more than for the amount allowing the maximum earned income.
Suppose that you are in 2006, a single dad with one kid and an income of $12,000. Then your EITC is $ 2740 which means that over the whole year you enjoyed 12000+2740= $ 14740. If your income was 18000 your EITC would be only 2230 and your total for the year $ 20230. I did interview about 100 people making their taxes in Savannah, the vast majority would say that if they had only $ 2230 this year (compared to, for instance, 2740 last year), they should work less next year. That is because they never add the numbers together, and it is hard to make them accept that in the second case, they have less EITC but they still enjoyed 20230 – 14740 = $ 5490 more. The difficulty for them to understand this is that during the year, they made over three thousand dollars more than the year before, but they have already spent it: they only look at the future money. Therefore, it is not a good law, it needs to be changed: we want people to make more money, not less.
One of the strangest consequences of the EITC is the constant swapping of children. People in Savannah are savvy: they know that the EITC for three or four children is the same as for two children. So if they have three kids, they will give one (on paper) to cousin Smith, so cousin Smith who has no kid yet, came claim one, which would give him $ 2740 (for a 12000 income). The extra EITC money will then be split between the two families. Every January, there is a huge children swap in Savannah and no end to the discussions about who will get the desirable “extra children” on paper. I do not claim that it is illegal: many kids live before and after school with different members of the family. It may not be illegal, but it is not the spirit of the law. The taxpayers have learned how to maximize the benefits of the EITC. It has, however, unhealthy consequences: a lot of mothers with genuine rights to declare their kids, probably, as a rough estimate, 3 to 5 percent of taxpayers, come to discover at tax time that their tax return is rejected because somebody else already claimed their kids. Of course, they can appeal, but all the situations of poor people are complex, family relations are complex, and most of the time the injustice will be committed and will not be corrected. These women do not want to go to trial against their family, they got enough problems, and therefore we do not have reliable statistics.
I met in Savannah one great accountant who told me that such tax laws should be changed every five years, because in five years time, people learn how to distort the system. In the meantime, absurdity reigns: the first woman who told me to “scratch this kid” and added: “It is not my kid any more this year” plunged me in abysmal perplexity.
One young college student, who was making very good money as a golf caddy, asked me how he could increase his EITC. What was I supposed to say? “Get four kids, spread them around, and don’t work too hard?”

Best journalist in December: Derek Kravitz

2008-12-30T15:14:00.007-05:00

I have been complaining about journalists quite often, sometimes here (see list on the right) many times while talking to a screen. It is not their fault: their training is atrocious, the money is short, the pressure is inflating their egos and they usually already think that they would do better than Congress (this I think too, but I do not show it on TV). Editors have no idea how exasperating trivia can be when you read them 20 times in a few days. I cant wait to see the end of the holidays and to escape papers on:
- the shoes of President Bush
- the absence of shirt of the president-elect
- icecream cones in Hawaii
- the illegitimate children in the Palin family

I am reading daily the New York Times (I finally forgave them for frauds that I thought were structural), the Washington Post because they are still honest and they have bright people, the Huffington Post because they come elegantly online, and the Los Angeles Times because they are always good on Latin America and the Middle East.

I have been pleased to read Derek Kravitz in the Washington Post recently. Here comes a young journalist that does not annoy me with the daily trivia. He picks up subjects where he has to dig information instead of choosing moody stuff where there is style and no content. The guy works: he has a future!

Derek Kravitz attracted my attention a few month back with a paper on Indian Affairs; I wish more had been done on the subject. There is a lot to tell. But I guess one gets to prove oneself nowadays by jumping through the hoops instead of chewing on a good thing. And today, I read with pleasure a paper entitled Homelessness Official Wins Praise With Focus on Permanent Housing HA! A journalist praises somebody in the Bush administration, it has been a long time! I wish we could find some more, because of course there are more: as a democrat, I keep thinking that a view of government without nuances is not good for democracy. This is the story of a civil servant who keeps trying: give me more. The subject of homelessness, once again, is worth more papers.

And if I could suggest to Mr Kravitz one more topic: there are one million children neglected or abused every year in this civilized country. A bunch of papers would be welcome on that topic too. Is this drug related? Ignorance related? Can we solve it with more daycare? Should we have more education for future parents? Dig this enough, you might change the worrld.

The claim of being honest

2008-12-28T10:57:00.004-05:00

Newspapers claim they have to close doors, they "restructure", we all know what that means and still, they spend money to cover the president-elect taking a swim in Hawaii. I first thought it was ridiculous, then I realized that they are waiting for him to get killed. To be fair, that is what they expect when they follow President Bush in Texas too. The no-news today could turn into a national catastrophe at any moment: after all, President Roosevelt died in his Georgia little house. Well, ok then. How many people do you need on that kind of watch? More than two?

What irritates me even more is that, because these journalists are paid and there is nothing to say, I get coverage that enrages me, such as an analysis (in depth) of the political consequences of President-elect Obama going to swim without a shirt and tie. Gee, and you wonder why we do not want to buy newspapers anymore! What a loss for democracy!

On top of it all, there are reports that the President-elect tried to bribe journalists by offering them a beer. Mr Obama was unrepentant because he also offered them ice shavings. Come on! I understand why a journalist politely declines, but I find it unacceptable that a journalist would even think of mentioning it proudly ("none of us accepted") What am I supposed to believe? That the CNN guy who reported this proved to me how honest he is? For refusing a beer? On the contrary, it makes me anxious: I think the guy should be investigated by a district attorney back home.

There is nothing suspicious like claiming that you are so pure that you refused a beer. Either the pool of journalists comprises some very dishonest people or it shines with very stupid ones.
Or both.

The wrong planet

2008-12-27T09:53:00.019-05:00

Photo courtesy of photos8.com

"If somehow that's impeachable, then I'm on the wrong planet and I'm living in the wrong place" This is what Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said to a WLS-TV reporter, as reported by the Huffington Post.

It makes me wonder on what planet he is living.

A lot of people ignore that the mind is a pleaser: our mind finds excuses for everything we want to do. You might define this as the original sin, on the Christian side or as some evolutionary safeguard, on the scientific side. We all know that animals cheat (monkeys more than cats and cats more than dogs), so it is human nature to cheat and feel good about it or find excuses for it. It might go back to the necessity to deceive when you hunt. If you do not know this about your own mind, you might wonder indeed on what planet you stand.

Tit-for-tat: "everybody does it"

Murder: "If I had done it, it would have been because I loved her very much" said O.J., never wondering what kind of "love" is that!
He did the same thing recently, going at some people with guns "I did not know it was illegal" he said (really?) and "I did not mean to hurt anybody"(then why use guns to confront his "friends"?)

Rape: all pedophiles on TV say that "they would not hurt a child" (they "love"children) and most rapists explain that "the bitch deserved it" or "the bitch wanted it"(nothing to do with them, poor guys trapped in this unjust world)

Stealing in a grocery store: "they can afford it"(even though it is never Walmart paying for the theft, it is just you and me)

"The boss is a jerk, so I can do this" (why don't you get another job?)

We don't have to claim that we are the most honest person in the world. We just have to know what is going on. If I was (God forbid) Gov. Rod Blagojevich' mom, I would suggest that he takes a honesty test on the web, just to know where he stands on this planet.

Everybody's brain is a pleaser: tell your kids.

Laugh of the year with Dean Acheson (1893-1971)

2008-12-23T20:22:00.010-05:00

Photo from medaloffreedom.com

I found by accident an advice that Dean Acheson gave to Harry Truman in 1960 during the primaries (Truman was not enthusiastic about Kennedy). Some Democrats this year would have been well inspired to listen to the old wise man!

" ABOUT OTHER DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES
" (a) Never say that any of them is not qualified to be President.
" (b) Never say that any of them can't win.
" (c) Never suggest that any of them is the tool of any group or interest, or is not a true blue liberal, or has (or has used) more money than another."

p184-185 of Among Friends. Personal letters of Dean Acheson, 1980

Politics of reconciliation is not reconciliation for politics

2008-12-18T17:52:00.013-05:00

Billy Graham, President Nixon, President Obama, Reverend Warren: the temptations of evangelism.

How come people who call themselves "evangelical" are so often deprived of the most elementary compassion? They seem to lack the qualities that make a good Christian: Jesus was open minded, isn't it? I understand that it is the Dalai Lama who said "My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness", but it does not sound foreign to me.
I am all stressed out that after giving us a government of brilliant minds, our president-elect Obama picks up a preacher who is mean spirited and does not understand evolution (see the blog of Thoughts from Kansas and the comments.
Don't we have a good evangelist in this country? I have seen a few on TV that looked perfectly respectable. It is not the case of Rev. Rick Warren, no more than was the pastor Jeremiah Wright, even taking into account his oratory style: jealous and mean. I am mad at them, and I am not even gay.

But you never know how respectable exemplary people are. Many many years ago, there was in Belgium a big evangelical crowd to listen to Billy Graham. The set was a bit theatrical: some church members that I knew (people from my own church) had volunteered to get "converted" suddenly at the end of the preaching, in order to encourage the shy agnostics in the crowd to do the same. It is a small thing, it is not a sin or a crime, but I was not surprised, years later, to see that the same Billy Graham had advised President Nixon so well.

The Wuss Generation

2008-12-16T19:19:00.002-05:00

Sex or the Internet.

Domino effect in Savannah, GA

2008-12-14T01:02:00.006-05:00

In the relatively small town where I live, Savannah GA, there are more and more signs of recession.

Like everywhere else, houses stopped selling. We did not get very anxious about it, as housing around here had gone up much faster than salaries: this can only go on for so long.

The neighbors at the fringe of society in our neighborhood disappeared: the mom who was on drugs, the couple who "worked to drink", the entire household of some freshly installed students that we suspected of selling drugs.

The new commercial building, pretty and well located, did not rent. It is usual for old business locations to stay empty for a year, but for a new building, it is surprising.

Places that had little excuse for survival started going, going and were gone. such as the Linen and Things specially designed for people much older than me (I am almost 70 years old: it does not leave many customers of an older generation), the fast food which was always dirty, the fabric store where the manager hated all her customers, the antique shop which was filled with expensive junk, the restaurant where nobody ever greets you. They are gone, it may be sad, but it is healthy.

We lost the very nice couple next door and their five kids. They both worked in construction, lost their job the same day and could not pay the rent. In six months, unemployment in Savannah has gone from 4.7% to 6.0 %. Construction, manufacturing, leisure and information are hit.

Shops that I really liked disappeared, the nice small Mexican restaurant just slightly out of the way, the great little store of wine and cheese, who went from fair business to loosing money for the last five months.

Smart places are in trouble like the elegant extended stay hotel nearby, the best restaurant, the gallery owner.

LOWES sent me a card offering me 10 dollars if I spend $25.

A friend of mine lost his job in the local newspaper... but we made it in the New York Times with a sad story and a beautiful picture.

Spending more to fix the economy?

2008-12-13T11:23:00.011-05:00

One one hand, we get called names for using too much credit, and that killed our economy. On the other hand, we are supposed to spend more to support the economy because we do not spend enough and that kills the economy.

It does not make sense. Ah, wait a minute! The US Gross Domestic Product is about 14 trillion dollars a year, about the same as the European Union and twice as much as China. But most of it is made of services (79% compared to 19.8 for industry and 1.2 for agriculture). What is services? Everything not included in the two other categories: transport, health care, finance, retailers, etc). It means that over three quarters of the economy is built on our capacity to spend: buy or rent houses, dresses and books and go to the movies and end up in a restaurant. It has been decades now that businesses look for more stuff to put in our hands, from hoola hoops to cell phones. They calculate a shorter and shorter lifetime for everything we buy to force us to buy the same thing again, be it a house, a computer, a car or a refrigerator. then of course we need credit to buy the stuff. And businesses outsource and import to make more profit. So our industrial capacity disappears.

Unhappily, the more unemployed and poor retirees like me, the less we spend and the economy shrinks. This US economy: the one that is more built on spending than on building.
So the real solution is not for the government to throw a trillion dollars around, it should be to get more industry in the US. Let us get back to a 30% industry and agriculture: that is the real wealth of a country. Working and creating before spending.

On a new verb: to bleep

2008-12-11T11:13:00.011-05:00

- And bleep you too!

The bleeping has been started this week by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. His report on the conversations of the Governor of Illinois was filled with "bleeps that were not bleeps". The press has not stopped bleeping since.

Disclosure: I might have occasionally let go of "merdre" if I inadvertently drop something in the house. I try to stay polite at all times, because I want to be a good example for my dogs. Merdre is the equivalent, I think, of "Shite!" an insult invented by the French surrealist author Alfred Jarry.But I think that from now on I might replace it by BLEEP when I get a bad moment.

That many bleeps is not a good sign. It was very disturbing to hear it in the White House in President Nixon's days. It says how much you are going to let yourself go, how much above the rules you are. Not a good sign at all.

Moneywise

2008-12-11T07:49:00.000-05:00

This is Ben our cat. He usually follows the movement of the tickers on CNBC. But this morning, he insisted on watching a discussion about stocks on MSNBC. You got to wonder.

Something you don't know about Blagojevich

2008-12-10T07:52:00.010-05:00

He did not have a father like mine. My dad used to pose me ethical questions all the time. It would start like: "Suppose that you are buying police cars for the city" or "Now you are the director of the Central Bank" and it would be about bribes and corruption. "You cannot take that gift from the car company, he would say, you have to ask for a better price for the city instead". And if I asked why, he would say:"Because it is tax money. The price of the gift has to be deduced from the price of the cars, because the city is paying for it." All the time, I got these problems to solve, and some of them were not easy at all.

The worst came when I started going out: my dad would drill my would be boyfriends as well and send me warning signals if they did not have the right answer. Most of them did not. Nevertheless, I was a tad ungrateful for the advice.

I am not saying that Blagojevich is not responsible for what he did: every adult is, and it is his own greed. I am just saying that if he had had a dad like mine, brazen he would not be: there is no way that you could deny knowing right from wrong in our home.

The next terrorist

2008-12-06T17:54:00.019-05:00

This nice-looking, highly educated young man, Jean Bastien-Thiry tried to kill President De Gaulle and was executed. When I was in France, some colleagues of mine, to my surprise, brought flowers to his tomb years and years after his death.
Many people tend to view terrorists as inflamed Muslims: it is a dangerous view. Terrorism always starts at home. Indeed terrorists have one thing in common with pedophiles: they recognize each other, communicate with each other, help each other and commit crimes together. They grow up at home, in a family who defines itself as "victim" and has "enemies". Look at the Balkans, at the IRA, at Palestine, at Serbia, at Kashmer, at Mumbai, and look at Timothy McVeigh. These guys all reason the same way: it is a community of minds.

They are now linked together, thanks to technological progress and globalization. It does not take much for a big hit:
- an intellectual leader and fund provider (remember the Marx-Engels team? Engels, who was of a well-off family was paying all of Marx expenses: terrorists thrive of that kind of alliance).
- a clique of poor and poorly educated idealists trained to be ready for anything.

Terrorism is ancient: the best description of a terrorist was written in 1885 by Emile Zola in Germinal The most instructive movie on the subject is still probably The Day of the Jackal: you got to see Edward Fox in a very impressive interpretation. I met some terrorists, I know what they look like, and they look just like that.

In a way, it is a blessing that they are so wired towards taking lives and getting headlines, because it limits the damage they do. But don't count on it to remain this simple. At Mumbai, they tried to start an Indian-Pakistan war with fake messages. It is interesting, because it goes further than "kill and get the press".

What is next? An alliance with Mexican drug dealers and an attack of the Internet.
Why the Internet? If we get no computers, we cant even go to war. The Internet remains our weakest spot. Yes, the Bush government has spent money on Gov sites' protection, but it is a short view. We need to protect the communication network per se and have banks and businesses protected too.
Why Mexico? 1) It is the closest country with major corruption, it is the easiest way to snuggle in, and there is a lot of cash around. 2) 30 milions Americans are on drugs. Who needs a Muslim terrorist? The pie is here, and it is ready.

How did I form this bizarre opinion? With a bunch of fun information. Here it is.

An old book by Cliff Stoll The cuckoo's egg. This is the true story of a young astronomer from Berkeley making some money as a computer assistant manager. Cliff is in charge of finding the origin of a 75 cents discrepancy between the two systems allotting computer time and billing at Berkeley. This 75 cents error is the astonishing start of the discovery of an international spy network. What you got to remember from the book is that almost nobody takes security at heart for a long time. Since the book, the technology has changed, people have not changed: we all have sloppy records on security.
In Vernon Vinge's Rainbows' end, a man recovering from Alzheimer has to learn new technology. It is just the start of a complex plot. The book deals with augmented reality and virtual worlds and all kinds of exciting concepts.
George Alec Effinger mixed humor, dark thoughts and dark visions in a very unique way. When Gravity Fails is set in a time where the Arab world dominates a decadent western civilization. All kinds of gadgets appear in the book that can modify one's brain.
On the dangers of all this technology to freedom, I thought that The net (1995, with Sandra Bullock) presented a good case. Some people thought that it was too far-fetched: all the stolen info in the movie comes from a popular program. Guess what? It is just what the Russian internet thieves did."A Russian company that sells fake antivirus software that actually takes over a computer pays its illicit distributors as much as $5 million a year." Source:John Markoff, NYTimes, Dec 5, 2008.
As for Mexico, go buy the last Newsweek (Dec,8,2008, Bloodshed on the border) and the last Counter Terrorism (winter issue 2008 Welcome to hell: the mexican drug war).
You add the money that drugs lords make and the money that internet thieves make, you got to conclude that we are more rich than we think. We can afford to lose $100 billion a year (see Markoff paper above) in internet fraud and 65 billions a year in illegal drugs (see drugcaucus.senate.gov). We could buy cars with all that money!
In the meantime, where does the drug money go? To friends of the US? Not a chance.
Time to ask yourself and your kids what we asked after 9/11: "Are you funding terrorism?"

The beauty of coincidences

2008-12-06T07:45:00.010-05:00

Cerberus had three dogs heads and the tail of a dragon. It was keeping the gate of hell. The image comes from a beautiful French site about antiquity: remacle.org

On one hand, Chrysler has been asking for "A $7 billion secured working capital bridge loan by December 31, 2008."ref from Time.com
On the other hand, Chrysler was bought last year at 80% by the private firm Cerberus "for $7.4 billion from the German carmaker Daimler" ref from the NYT

Huh! I do know it is just a coincidence. But it reminds me (something or other does every morning) that I am not just as smart as I thought yesterday night.

Bizarre, bizarre all over again.

Bailing out Detroit

2008-12-05T00:03:00.016-05:00

Yesterday, I was all in favor of bailing out the car industry because 1) I am worried about Detroit and 2) I am old and sentimental.
I should not have listened to the debate today; I changed my mind. I am so naive even in my advanced years that I thought they would come with a plan. They did not: they came with justifications for their need of money. With a few billions more, they cant even innovate, they are going to produce the same misunderstood cars and promote them through the same crooky advertisers.
I really thought yesterday, and that tells you how stupid I am, that they would come back and say stuff like:

- look, the average car price has been 40% of the median American salary every year since 1990: we are going to change that. Refrigerators and TV prices went down, we should do the same.
- We realize that hybrid cars are too expensive for now, we are going to propose a totally electric subcompact at a very low price and get into the low car rental with our unsold big cars. We are even going to offer a 10-days free rent of a big car to anybody who buys a small one. Most people buy bigger cars just to visit their mother once a year: let them do that for free.
- With all the battle for more electronics in everybody's car, we have forgotten that there is a market for cheap cars. We are going to look back at the Bug and the 2CV Citroen and produce an elegant go anywhere, cheap, robust little car with low gas consumption and low price for parts.
- We want to invest in a woman's car with stuff like a place for driving shoes.
- We are sick and tired of watching people take a buggy at the grocery store, fill it up, get everything out to pay, put everything back in, go to the car, put everything in the car and go to the house and take everything out again.From now on we produce our cars with a sliding buggy that stays upright, with a mechanism like ambulance beds. Furthermore, we are going to buy the patent to read the prices of the produces you buy directly in the buggy without putting them on a counter.

You see? That is a plan. Maybe not the best, but it is a plan.

Not only I am dangerously naive, I am also dangerously disappointed: let them die. Cut them in chunks and let a new generation of CEOs deal with each chunk.

With 10 billion dollars, you can pay and train 200,000 people for one year. Get 10 billions in reserve for pension plans(but it is not enough), 5 billions as a stimulus to small, bolder car makers. Who needs the old fusspots?

We need a car to love.
PS They are getting some money, thanks congress for that, but I still hope they will make better cars.

A grumpy fish

2008-12-04T11:26:00.005-05:00

Some people just make your day. I was this morning at Petsmart and a lady complained about her fish. She said that it was a very nice fish for the last six years, and now it becomes aggressive and misbehaves. The assistant told her that maybe it was because the fish was getting old.
Can you believe this? It made me think of the journalist who complained that Senator McCain looked on TV like an old guy shouting at the squirrels.

Now you cannot cope with an old fish? The fish probably needs something simple like a mate or a bigger tank. The lady wanted to exchange her fish.
After six years?
If you cant handle a grumpy fish, how do you handle your job?

What kind of a world is this?

New definition of the tragicomic

2008-12-04T10:15:00.004-05:00

Just look at this:
2006 pundits

Anti recession feast for two ($15, 5 minutes)

2008-12-03T15:47:00.012-05:00

With all this talk about a big depression, I had a need for a little feast. Not much money does not have to be not much fun.

Candlelight dinner for two:

$ 7: unpeeled shrimps (here in GA in this season, you get a lot for that price). I heat moderately a spoon of olive oil in a pan, add a lot of garlic and a pinch of paprika (you may use some pepper if you prefer; this is not to be done with peeled shrimps of course, it would kill the taste), I throw in my shrimps and cover. Turn them over once. Cut the heat as soon as they are red, leave in covered pan.
$ 3: CA chardonnay Bay Bridge not too cold, excellent for the price.
$ 2 to 3: Two cups of jasmine rice served with half a lemon (If you have any, you may add a touch of saffron, but it is beautiful white). Or a pack of Traders Joe multigrain pilaf: it heats in its pack for two minutes in the microwave and it is splendidly flavored.

$ 1: a chocolate bar cut in two with a cup of good coffee or excellent tea.

And before you ask me, no I do not spend that much money every day, but I always eat well.