Аня, Аня!!!!
Интересный ролик, наглядно демонстрирующий упадок нравов :( click the image
January 31, 2006
January 30, 2006
NYT: When You Fly in First Class...
By BEN STEIN
Mr. Cotten's character, a pulp fiction writer named Holly Martins, asks him how he could do such an evil thing for money. The two men are at the top of the Ferris wheel, and the people below them look like tiny dots. Mr. Welles's villain looks down and says, "Tell me, would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you £20,000 for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?"
This scene comes to mind when I think of Glenn F. Tilton and other executives of the UAL Corporation and the hapless employees of its primary business, United Airlines. Its history is a perfect text for the ethical morass in which American business often finds itself.
United is one of the proudest names in airline history. It has long been a synonym for fine service and extensive, convenient routes. In the early 1990's, when some investment bankers were casting around for a way to make tens of millions of dollars, they came up with a doozy: the employees of UAL would give up some of their salaries and benefits in exchange for stock in UAL, eventually becoming UAL's largest owner through an employee stock ownership plan.
The deal went through — with staggering compensation to Wall Street — and in 1994 the American employees of UAL, as a group, became its largest owners. Within a few years, overseas personnel were allowed the privilege of tossing their life savings into UAL, too.
Trouble was not far behind. The employees found management demanding pay cuts, big (and, for passengers, inconvenient) changes and cuts in scheduling and services, and even silly changes in their once-great flight attendant uniforms. Then came the blows of 9/11 and a recession, and then rising fuel costs. There were demands for more cuts in pay and benefits and more layoffs. That was not enough. About three years ago, UAL was "forced" to enter bankruptcy to stay alive.
This step meant that UAL could drastically cut workers' pay — and it did. Pensions were simply jettisoned and made the burden of the federal government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which meant cuts of close to two-thirds in some pilots' pension payments. And, of course, the bankruptcy simply eliminated all of that equity in UAL that the employees had bought with their hard-earned savings.
Thus, in a series of evil events, management of UAL basically ruined the lives of the employee-owners, if that is not putting too fine a point on it, by taking away their savings, incomes and pensions. (I am indebted to my pal, Phil DeMuth, for much of this research.)
All right, you might say. What else could management have done amid high fuel costs and a deregulated, supercompetitive market? That's "creative destruction," and it's good for the economy, some of my fellow Republicans and admirers of the free market might say. But what about the rules of law and common decency? Because, you see, there is a bit more to the story.
Now UAL has been reorganized. It is preparing to emerge from bankruptcy. It will soon have a stock offering. This offering is expected to raise very roughly $6 billion. It is presumably worth that because UAL now has such low labor costs that it may actually make a profit of some size. (I'll believe it when I see it.)
Here comes the good part: management has asked the bankruptcy court to let it have — free — roughly 15 percent of the stock in the new company, or about $900 million. Mr. Tilton, the chief executive, who plays the Orson Welles character in this drama, would get about $90 million personally for his hard work shepherding UAL through bankruptcy (for which he was already paid multiple millions of dollars).
The bankruptcy court, instead of ordering Mr. Tilton's arrest, instead cut the management share to about 8 percent, so he will get more than $40 million, more or less. That is more than Lee R. Raymond, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, one of the most successful companies of all time, was paid in 2004 (not counting Mr. Raymond's 28 million shares of restricted stock).
So here it is in a nutshell: employees are goaded into investing a big chunk of their wages and benefits in UAL stock. They lose that. Then they lose big parts of their pay and pensions. They become peons of UAL. Management gets $480 million, more or less. "Creative destruction?" Or looting?
Wait, Mr. Tilton and Mr. Bankruptcy Judge. The employees were the owners of UAL. They were the trustors, and Mr. Tilton and his pals were trustees for them. How were the trustors wiped out while the trustees, the fiduciaries, became fantastically rich? Is this the way capitalism is supposed to work? Trustors save up, and their agents just take their savings away from them?
If the company is worth so much that management has hundreds of millions coming to them, shouldn't the employee-owners get a taste? Does capitalism mean anything if the owners of the capital can be wiped out while their agents grow wealthy? Is this a way to encourage savings and the ownership society? Or is this a matter of to him who hath shall be given?
I know that this is basically the same story I described recently concerning the Delphi Corporation, where something similar is going on. But that's exactly the point. Management is using competition, higher fuel costs and every other cost complaint to cut the pay and pensions of its own employees while enriching itself.
And I can well imagine what goes through Mr. Tilton's mind as he does it: "Hey, I'm a great executive. Great executives in private-equity firms make more than I do. Why shouldn't I get the moolah? Basically, I've worked it so UAL is now a private-equity deal anyway. That's what it's all about now, isn't it? Who's got the most at the end of the day at Bighorn or the Reserve or whatever golf course I choose to retire at? And, anyway, wouldn't you take $48 million for a few of those dots we used to call our employees and owners to stop moving?"
Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: ebiz@nytimes.com.
January 29, 2006
January 28, 2006
Digital Cameras: 39 Megapixels!!!
Right after I purchased a digital camera with Leica lens and 8 megapixels, Hasselblad announces a new 39 Megapixels camera. Un-bloody-believable! :)
Read more about it here
Images of the Day
Afganistan. A British soldier on patrol.
Georgia. Gas shortages.
Venezuela. At the Social Forum in Caracas
NYT: Re-thinking 9/11
By JOSEPH J. ELLIS
Amherst, Mass.
IN recent weeks, President Bush and his administration have mounted a spirited defense of his Iraq policy, the Patriot Act and, especially, a program to wiretap civilians, often reaching back into American history for precedents to justify these actions. It is clear that the president believes that he is acting to protect the security of the American people. It is equally clear that both his belief and the executive authority he claims to justify its use derive from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
A myriad of contested questions are obviously at issue here — foreign policy questions about the danger posed by Iraq, constitutional questions about the proper limits on executive authority, even political questions about the president's motives in attacking Iraq. But all of those debates are playing out under the shadow of Sept. 11 and the tremendous changes that it prompted in both foreign and domestic policy.
Whether or not we can regard Sept. 11 as history, I would like to raise two historical questions about the terrorist attacks of that horrific day. My goal is not to offer definitive answers but rather to invite a serious debate about whether Sept. 11 deserves the historical significance it has achieved.
My first question: where does Sept. 11 rank in the grand sweep of American history as a threat to national security? By my calculations it does not make the top tier of the list, which requires the threat to pose a serious challenge to the survival of the American republic.
Here is my version of the top tier: the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility.
Sept. 11 does not rise to that level of threat because, while it places lives and lifestyles at risk, it does not threaten the survival of the American republic, even though the terrorists would like us to believe so.
My second question is this: What does history tell us about our earlier responses to traumatic events?
My list of precedents for the Patriot Act and government wiretapping of American citizens would include the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which allowed the federal government to close newspapers and deport foreigners during the "quasi-war" with France; the denial of habeas corpus during the Civil War, which permitted the pre-emptive arrest of suspected Southern sympathizers; the Red Scare of 1919, which emboldened the attorney general to round up leftist critics in the wake of the Russian Revolution; the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, which was justified on the grounds that their ancestry made them potential threats to national security; the McCarthy scare of the early 1950's, which used cold war anxieties to pursue a witch hunt against putative Communists in government, universities and the film industry.
In retrospect, none of these domestic responses to perceived national security threats looks justifiable. Every history textbook I know describes them as lamentable, excessive, even embarrassing. Some very distinguished American presidents, including John Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, succumbed to quite genuine and widespread popular fears. No historian or biographer has argued that these were their finest hours.
What Patrick Henry once called "the lamp of experience" needs to be brought into the shadowy space in which we have all been living since Sept. 11. My tentative conclusion is that the light it sheds exposes the ghosts and goblins of our traumatized imaginations. It is completely understandable that those who lost loved ones on that date will carry emotional scars for the remainder of their lives. But it defies reason and experience to make Sept. 11 the defining influence on our foreign and domestic policy. History suggests that we have faced greater challenges and triumphed, and that overreaction is a greater danger than complacency.
Joseph J. Ellis is a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College and the author, most recently, of "His Excellency: George Washington."
January 27, 2006
Saltykov-Schedrin's Birthday!!!
Jan 27 is the 180th anniversary of Saltykov-Schedrin's birthday. Hooray!
О нас
Пристанищев у нас нет никаких - оттого и времени праздного много. А и дело навернется - тоска на него глядеть! Отвыкли. Все тоска! все тоска! а от тоски, известно, одно лекарство: водка. Вот мы и жрем ее, чтобы, значит, время у нас свободнее летело.
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
На пьяницу, по правде сказать, и смотреть строго нельзя, потому он доход казне приносит. А вот другие-то, трезвые-то, с чего на стену лезут? Ну чего надо? А?
("Современная идиллия")
О предках
Фрондерство исстари составляло характеристическую черту наших дедушек и бабушек. Они фрондировали в дворянских собраниях, фрондировали в клубах, фрондировали, устраивая в пику предержащим властям благородные спектакли и пикники.
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
О женщинах
Женщин никто не считал, и количество их определяется словом: достаточно.
("Современная идиллия")
Об идиотах
Обыкновенно противу идиотов принимаются известные меры, чтобы они, в неразумной стремительности, не все опрокидывали, что встречается им на пути. Но меры эти почти всегда касаются только простых идиотов; когда же придатком к идиотству является властность, то дело ограждения общества значительно усложняется.
("История одного города")
О либералах
Хотя стремление перевести идеалы из области эмпиреев на практическую почву припахивало не совсем благонадежно, но либерал так искренно пламенел, и притом был так мил и ко всем ласков, что ему даже неблагонадежность охотно прощали.
("Либерал")
Либерализм - это своего рода дойная корова, за которою, при некоторой сноровке и при недостатке бдительного надзора, можно жить припеваючи.
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
О нравах
Нравов и обычаев не имеется, так как таковые, еще при крепостном праве, уничтожены, а после того, за объявлением воли вину, не успели народиться. К числу нравов и обычаев, признаки которых уже до известной степени обозначились, следует отнести ... стремление к увеличению государственного дохода посредством посещения кабаков.
("Современная идиллия")
Такова была простота нравов того времени, что мы, свидетели эпохи позднейшей, с трудом можем перенестись даже воображением в те недавние времена, когда каждый эскадронный командир, не называя себя коммунистом, вменял себе, однако ж, за честь и обязанность быть оным от верхнего конца до нижнего.
("История одного города")
При такой простоте нравов остается только одно средство оградить свою жизнь от вторжения неприятных элементов - это, откинув все сомнения, начать снова бить по зубам. Но как бить! Бить - без ясного права на битье; бить - и в то же время бояться, что каждую минуту может последовать приглашение к мировому по делу о самовольном избитии!
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
О свободах
По мере того, как развивалась свобода, нарождался и исконный враг ее - анализ.
("История одного города")
Свобода от обязанности думать есть та любезнейшая приправа, без которой вся жизнь человеческая есть не что иное, как юдоль скорбей.
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
О реформах
Судьба всех реформ такова, и сибирским губерниям, быть может, совсем придется остаться без цирков.
("В больнице для умалишенных")
Реформы необходимы, но не менее того необходимы и знаки препинания. Или, говоря иными словами: выпустил реформу - довольно, ставь точку; потом, спустя время, опять выпустил реформу и опять точку ставь. И так далее, до тех пор, пока не исполнятся неисповедимые божие пути. С своей стороны, скажу более: не одну, а несколько точек всякий раз ставить не мешало бы. И не непременно после реформы, но и в другое, свободное от реформ, время.
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
Об образовании
Никаких я двух систем образования не знаю, знаю только одну. И эта одна система может быть выражена в следующих немногих словах: не обременяя юношей излишними знаниями, всемерно внушать им, что назначение обывателей в том состоит, чтобы беспрекословно и со всею готовностью выполнять начальственные предписания!
("Современная идиллия")
О благонадежности
Политическая благонадежность обывателей безусловно хороша, чему много способствует неимение в селе школы. О формах правления не слышно, об революциях известно только одно: что когда вводили уставную грамоту, то пятого человека наказывали на теле. Основы защищать - готовы.
("Современная идиллия")
О благопристойности
Наша благопристойность состоит не столько в наружных проявлениях благоповедения, но в том главнейше, чтобы обыватель памятовал, что жизнь сия есть временная и что сам он - скудельный сосуд. Так, например, плевать у нас можно, а "иметь дерзкий вид" - нельзя; митирологией заниматься - можно, а касаться внутренней политики или рассуждать о происхождении миров - нельзя.
("Современная идиллия")
О начальстве
Ежели древним еллинам и римлянам дозволено было слагать хвалу своим безбожным начальникам и предавать потомству мерзкие их деяния для назидания, ужели же мы, христиане, от Византии свет получившие, окажемся в сем случае менее достойными и благодарными? Ужели во всякой стране найдутся и Нероны преславные, и Калигулы, доблестью сияющие, и только у себя мы таковых не обрящем? Смешно и нелепо даже помыслить таковую нескладицу!
("История одного города")
А начальство между тем беспокоится. Туда-сюда - везде мерзость. Даже тайные советники - и те нынче под сумнением состоят! Ни днем, ни ночью минуты покоя нет никогда!
("Современная идиллия")
По обыкновению, глуповцы в этом случае удивили мир своею неблагодарностью, и как только узнали, что градоначальнику приходится плохо, так тотчас же лишили его своей популярности.
("История одного города")
О законотворчестве
Под неумолкаемый, отовсюду несущийся звон колоколов как-то легко пишутся проекты, в которых реформаторские затеи счастливым образом сочетаются с запахом сивухи и с тем благосклонным отношением к жульничеству, которое доказывает, что жульничество - сила и что с этой силой необходимо считаться.
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
Долго сдерживаемая страсть к законодательству так громко вопияла об удовлетворении, что перед голосом ее умолкли даже доводы благоразумия.
Средние законы имеют в себе то удобство, что всякий, читая их, говорит: какая глупость! а между тем всякий же неудержимо стремится исполнять их.
Цель издания законов двоякая: одни издаются для вящего народов и стран устроения, другие - для того, чтобы законодатели не коснели в праздности.
Конституция...- вовсе не такое уж пугало, как люди несмысленные о сем полагают. Смысл каждой конституции таков: всякий в дому своем благополучно да почивает!
("История одного города")
Полезные рекомендации
При встречах с знакомыми дамами, предоставляется, отдав учтивый поклон, расспрашивать о здоровье. Буде же встретится дама незнакомая, то таковой поклона не отдавать, а продолжать путь в молчании, не дозволяя себе никаких аллегорических телодвижений.
При встрече с лицами высшими предоставляется выражать вежливое изумление и несомненную готовность претерпеть; при встрече с равными - гостеприимство и желание оказать услугу; при встрече с низшими - снисходительность, но без послабления.
При найме извозчиков, ежели надобность сия возникнет в первом районе - следует безусловно воздерживаться от сквернословия; во втором районе - воздерживаться лишь по мере возможности; в третьем же районе - воздержание или невоздержание оставляется на волю каждого, с тем лишь ограничением, дабы сквернословие прилагалось не по произволу сквернословящего, но по заслугам сквернословимого.
("Современная идиллия")
Если бы, например, своевременно было прибегнуто к расстрелянию, то и общество было бы спасено, и молодое поколение ограждено от заразы заблуждений.
Полагается небесполезным подвергнуть расстрелянию нижеследующих лиц:
Первое, всех несогласно мыслящих.
Второе, всех, в поведении коих замечается скрытность и отсутствие чистосердечия.
Третье, всех, кои угрюмым очертанием лица огорчают сердца благонамеренных обывателей.
Четвертое, зубоскалов и газетчиков.
И только.
("Дневник провинциала в Петербурге")
TLS: Life and death in the Red Army
by Omer Bartov
Anthony Beevor and Lucy Vinogradova, translators and editors
A WRITER AT WAR
Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941–1945
378pp. Harvill. £20.
1 843 43055 XCatherine Merridale
IVAN’S WAR
The Red Army, 1939–1945
396pp. Faber. £20.
0 571 21808 3
Entire mountains of books could or should now be thrown into the dustbin of history. New research on the Gulag has shown not merely the murderous brutality of that system, its economic inefficiency and its utter and complete uselessness; it has also demonstrated how different the Gulag was from the Nazi system. The “concentrationary universe” was not cut from the same cloth, even if saying so served the ideological purposes of those who rightly condemned Stalinist criminality. Similarly, new studies of Soviet “population policies” have largely dispensed with the simplistic models of earlier scholarship. Whether the Soviet Union was an “affirmative action empire”, as one scholar has argued, or “a state of nations”, as another has suggested, clearly Lenin and Stalin’s moulding and destruction of ethnic groups was part of a complex, and often brutal, process of trying to create a Soviet nation from a conglomerate of peoples under their control.
In brief, the more we learn about the Soviet Union, the more we realize that the term totalitarianism simply does not fit the bill: it neither describes the USSR in a satisfactory manner, nor does it provide more than the most simplistic measuring rod for a comparison with that other spectre of the twentieth century, the Bolsheviks’ greatest enemy and the Russian people’s scourge – Nazi Germany. But thanks to this new research, as well as to the new sensibilities developed in the wake of Communism’s fall, we are now also beginning to know much more about the war in which these two empires clashed and one of them was wiped out. The West is finally coming to the realization that despite its heroics and posturing, without the horrific sacrifice of the Soviet Union, it would have been squirming under the Nazi boot for far longer.
But it is also gradually grasping the sheer tragedy of this moment in the heart of the previous century, of a victory that had to be won and was bound to be lost, of a sacrifice never acknowledged and never recompensed, and of gains made by the defeated and power grasped by those who won with the blood of their discredited allies. The knowledge we have accumulated in the past fifteen years of open borders and archives is not a cause for much celebration, for it sheds light on the darkest, most desperate, and bloodiest episode of our time. We turn our face away from it in horror and despair, yet we know that we are still living its consequences.
Not all understanding is derived from documents newly salvaged from the archives. Some of the sources for understanding the tragedy and glory of Russia’s war have been waiting to be “discovered” and employed for decades, yet in a sense they were always available. This is the case of the two magnificent books under review here. Vasily Grossman completed his novel Life and Fate in 1960, but Mikhail Suslov, chief of the Cultural Section of the Central Committee, decided that it would not be published for at least 200 years, and the KGB seized all copies it could lay its hands on.
Life and Fate is finally being recognized as one of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century. But it had to be smuggled to Switzerland and only gradually came to be known by an international readership. It was finally published in Russia after the fall of Communism. An extraordinary combination of a sprawling nineteenth-century Russian novel and a Soviet social-realist depiction of simple men’s discovery of their capacity for heroism and sacrifice, the book was based on Grossman’s own experience at the front as a correspondent for the Red Army’s official paper, Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star). Thanks to Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova, the notebooks on which Grossman based much of his novel, written during his time at the front – where he spent most of the war years – are now available in an excellent English translation.
Grossman died in 1964, at the age of fifty-nine. He never saw his masterpiece in print and had over the years been transformed from a patriotic Soviet man into a deeply disillusioned one, though he never lost his love for the Soviet Union and the Russian people. But it is not only Grossman the man whose experience in the war has been rescued from oblivion by this publication: it is the experience of millions of Russian men and women, and innumerable other nationalities in the former Soviet Union, whose current resentment, contempt, fear or hate of the Russians does not in any way diminish the astonishing collective effort to drive out the Nazi invaders and put an end to their war of destruction.
One would have wanted to know more about these notebooks. We are told that Beevor “came across” them while writing his impressive book Stalingrad, but we are not given any information on where they were kept and how they were found. Nor does the book contain only Grossman’s diary entries, since these are combined with some of his articles, especially for Krasnaya Zvezda, some of his letters, and some other extraordinary writings, not least of which is his devastating account of the Nazi extermination camp in Treblinka, an essay that was subsequently quoted at the Nuremberg International Tribunal in 1945. What makes these notebooks so valuable, however, is their evident sincerity, Grossman’s critical yet empathetic gaze, and the manner in which his admiration of Soviet patriotism and his growing anger at the incompetence of so many commanders and the readiness of the regime to squander the lives of its sons combine to provide a searing portrait of the immense quantities of blood that were so readily given and so nonchalantly wasted to win a victory that had to be won.
Grossman’s prose moves from the mundane to the exalted, anticipating the greatness of Life and Fate but also staying very close to the immediacy of the events he is experiencing. Any war correspondent writing today about the horrors we are still being subjected to by ideologues, mean-spirited leaders and fanatics of various shades and faiths, should take the time to read him. There is a profound humanity in his prose, an ability for empathy and a capacity for rage that one rarely meets in papers which consider themselves much nobler than the Red Star. “At war,” Grossman writes, “a Russian man puts on a white shirt. He may live in sin, but he dies like a saint.” He then expands on this comment. “We Russians don’t know how to live like saints, we only know how to die like saints. The front [represents] the holiness of Russian death, the rear is the sin of Russian life.”
After the terrible battles of 1941, Grossman prepares for the horrors of Stalingrad without yet knowing what awaits him. At the front, he writes, “lies the answer to all questions and to all fates”. The answers he finds there, and the fate that he too will have to confront as Stalin tightens his hold on the nation as soon as the
battle has been won, will need years to digest, rework and commit to paper. And when he finally reaches his birthplace, the Ukrainian town of Berdichev, in early 1944, and learns how the Germans murdered his mother, along with most of the other 30,000 Jewish inhabitants of the town, he soon realizes not only that the fate of an entire people had been sealed under the guise of a murderous war, but that the Soviet authorities will never let him write about it. His article on Berdichev was censored, lest the Jews appear as unique victims and the Ukrainians as willing collaborators. And The Black Book, the attempt by Ilya Ehrenburg and Grossman to document the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, was finally barred from publication in 1947. This was Stalin’s answer to the fate of the Jews as he turned his attention to persecuting those who had done so much, for better and for worse, to create the reality and myth of the Soviet people.
That myth is shattered for Grossman also as he confronts the atrocities perpetrated by the Red Army as it enters Germany: the mass rapes, looting, murder of civilians and wanton destruction of property. “Horrifying things are happening to German women”, he writes. Even “Soviet girls liberated from the camps are suffering a lot now”, he notes, for the fury of the soldiers no longer makes any distinctions. And yet, in groping for an answer to the brutalization of the men he loves, Grossman does discover a truth that has long been forgotten. As German soldiers marched into Russia, they mocked what they called the “Soviet Paradise” of filth and poverty and considered the “Untermenschen” they encountered as hardly worthy of life. As the Red Army marched into Germany, writes Grossman,
our soldiers really started to ask themselves, why did the Germans attack us so suddenly? Why did the Germans need this terrible and unfair war? Millions of our men have now seen the rich farms in East Prussia, the highly organized agriculture, the concrete sheds for livestock, spacious rooms, carpets, wardrobes full of clothes . . . the well-built roads . . . and the German autobahns . . . the two storey suburban houses with electricity, gas, bathrooms and beautifully tended gardens . . . the villas of the rich bourgeoisie in Berlin, the unbelievable luxury of castles, estates and mansions. And thousands of soldiers repeat these angry questions when they look around them in Germany: “But why did they come to us? What did they want?”.
These questions are still being asked decades later by the 200 men and women interviewed in Ivan’s War: The Red Army, 1941–1945, and in the numerous letters and diaries Catherine Merridale has used to write this breathtaking, sweeping, yet well-balanced and finely tuned study of the Great Patriotic War from the perspective of the Soviet “grunt”.
At times it seems that the voices of the soldiers talking to us from the pages of the book overwhelm the argument proposed by the author. For Merridale ultimately insists that these millions of soldiers internalized a self-perception of glorious sacrifice and meaningful victimhood precisely because they had been treated so cynically by the state that sent them to die and abandoned those who barely survived. And, indeed, there is no doubt whatsoever that Merridale is right as far as the cynicism and callousness of the Soviet authorities
are concerned. But the men speak differently. Perhaps indeed they were duped, although, as Merridale concedes, there was no alternative. But their belief, their memories, their perception of what they did and why they did it, are their truth, and we may not have the right to deprive them of this small but valuable treasure.
Merridale is a sensitive listener and a moving, at times eloquent, writer. She therefore does not overstress her argument and has evident admiration for these men, those who speak from the pages of diaries and letters scribbled shortly before they were killed, and those who recall the events from the distance of old age and, usually, decades of poverty, illness and abandonment. But where Merridale surpasses not only other historians writing on the Red Army but military historians as a class, is in her extraordinary insights into the least visible yet often the most important aspects of the soldiers’ lives: their relations with the women they left behind and the women they encounter at the front; love, jealousy, hatred and violence; sex and impotence; anxiety, fear, despair and trauma; the impossibility of ever coming home as one had left it and the longing for the world that was destroyed for ever; courage, cowardice, avarice and crime.
Merridale seeks to know what the soldiers believed they were fighting for, what held them back and what drove them forward. In a war on such an unimaginable scale, where 27 million Soviet citizens died (of whom some 8.6 million were soldiers) and about 25 million were left homeless, it is clearly impossible to generalize. Following the terrible early defeats, men were moved by a desire for revenge, which remained with them throughout the war, gradually becoming a more effective tool as the army received better training, equipment and command. It was desire for revenge, not mere sexual drive, that was at the root of the murders and rapes that accompanied the invasion of Germany, argues Merridale, just as much as it was the same fury described by Grossman on seeing how, even in defeat, Germany was so much richer than Russia was even at its hour of total military superiority. By this point, Merridale writes, the Red Army had become “the instrument of collective redemption, the arm of vengeance and of liberation”.
It was also the instrument of a regime that had deported some 1.6 million of its own citizens by the end of the war, many of them Tatars from the Crimea and Chechens from the Caucasus. It was an army in which anti-Semitism flourished, even though Jews served in it with great dedication and expressions of anti-Semitism were forbidden. It was an army in which some 800,000 women served in a variety of roles, including combat, yet one which abused and exploited its own women, and raped and murdered hundreds of thousands of women, especially but not exclusively, in Germany. It was also an army in which men from innumerable ethnic groups served together, and yet one which increasingly made use of former political and criminal inmates of the Gulags, employed penal battalions on an impressive scale, and had to contend with nations coming back again under its control from the Baltic through Poland to Ukraine, whose hatred of the Soviet Union almost matched, and at times surpassed, that of Nazi Germany.
This too is probably why the memory of the war is so difficult to comprehend. Only a writer with Merridale’s fine sensibilities and keen understanding can begin to uncover the multiple layers involved. Anatoly Shevelev is one of those old soldiers who managed in his own peculiar manner to make sense of life and death in the war, its aftermath, and the shape of a post-Soviet Russia which he might have preferred not to have witnessed. As his wife, who had become a Christian was dying, Shevelev went to church. In his prayer, he said:
“Dear God, forgive me that I have been an atheist all my life. Not because I chose to be but because from my childhood on no one took me to church. I was brought up in an atheist world. I admire the Russian Orthodox Church, and these days I’ve started to value it, because if it had not been for the church, there would have been no Muscovy, and that was the foundation of our state. And in my own defence, please remember that I, along with millions of other atheists, saved the motherland. By doing so, indirectly, we saved your Orthodox Church. I’ve come to pray for the recovery of my wife, please, God. And forgive me. Because for my entire life I have been a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”
Isaac Babel could not have written it better.
Michael Jackson in the news
A Reuters photographer saw him in a popular shopping mall in the center of the capital Manama all in black, with sunglasses, gloves, a veil covering his face and dressed in an abaya, or full-length robe -- but with men's shoes peeping out below. The 47-year-old seemed to be shopping for new shoes in the mall with three Western-looking children, their faces also covered, and an unidentified woman.
The children drew the attention of other shoppers, who quickly recognized the star who is popular in the Gulf region. "Please, no!" Jackson shouted to photographers before making a rapid exit with the children and woman via the back door of the mall and into a white car. The woman asked photographers to step back.
"You have to give us some privacy. Please, you have to understand his position, he is with his kids ... you need to leave us alone," she said. A Bahraini official at the mall confirmed that it was Jackson who, his lawyer says, will no longer live full time at his Neverland ranch in central California. He was charged at his trial with molesting a young recovering cancer patient at Neverland in 2003. A jury found him innocent on all charges.
Jackson, originally from Indiana, rose to fame as a child with his brothers in the Jackson 5, and became one of the world's most successful singers. "Thriller," from 1982, was one of the biggest-selling albums of all time.
January 26, 2006
Disturbing News about the past
'Natural' chickens take flight
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
Four of the nation's top 10 chicken producers have virtually ended a practice that health and activist groups for years charged was causing a public health crisis: feeding broiler chickens low doses of antibiotics to make them grow faster and stay healthy.
"It is the first time that these companies have admitted to major quantitative reductions in antibiotic use. And it's not just one company but a tier of companies — the top tier of companies," says Margaret Mellon, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group that is a member of the coalition Keep Antibiotics Working.
Groups such as the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association have been calling for an end to low levels of antibiotics in animal feed since the 1990s because it has been linked to human bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics. But while Keep Antibiotics Working and the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics have called loudly for an end the practice, the industry itself has been quietly moving away from it. Tyson Foods, the nation's largest chicken producer, has led the way with a 93% reduction, from 853,000 pounds in 1997 to just 59,000 in 2004. In 2004, less than 1% of the company's broilers received antibiotics, says chief veterinarian Patrick Pilkington.
Perdue Farms stopped using antibiotics for growth promotion about five years ago. "It became obvious that it was a concern," says chief veterinarian Bruce Stewart-Brown. Now at any given farm in the system, only one flock in five years receives antibiotics, either to halt a disease outbreak or because birds are threatened with infection, he says. Chicken flocks can number up to 60,000 birds. As with humans, some years are worse for illness than others. Only 1% of California-based Foster Farms' flocks receive antibiotics, says Donald Jackson, president of the company's poultry division.
Together these four companies account for more than 38% of the broiler chickens produced in the USA, according to Watt Poultry USA's 2005 top broiler company survey. Broiler is the industry term for chickens raised for meat.
Randy Singer, a veterinarian and professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, says the news might help clear up misconceptions about meat safety. Though some people envision chicken soaked in antibiotics, that's not even allowable under food production guidelines of the USDA, he says. "When you use an antibiotic, you're not allowed to slaughter the animal for a certain period of time. There shouldn't be any antibiotic residue on any meat that's sold for consumer consumption," he says. Singer adds that a very low percentage of the birds bought in the supermarket have received an antibiotic, especially the birds at these companies.
Farmers discovered in the 1950s that adding low doses of antibiotics to feed promoted growth. With the rise of intensive industrial farming methods, low-level antibiotics helped compensate for crowded, stressful and sometimes unsanitary conditions — and made chicken the cheapest meat available. Neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the Department of Agriculture tracks antibiotics in poultry. But based on figures from the Animal Health Institute, which represents manufacturers of animal drugs, Mellon estimates that together the companies have stopped using as much as 2 million to 2½ million pounds of antibiotics medically important to humans a year. The change was partly made possible by hardier breeds and better husbandry, Tyson's Pilkington says.
"The industry is certainly making leaps and bounds in this area," he says. "Tyson has made great efforts in housing and preventative health programs, and that effort has paid off." Another impetus has been moves by large-scale purchasers of chicken to require meat from birds not fed antibiotics. As of December, McDonald's has required all its suppliers worldwide to no longer use antibiotics used in human medicine for growth promotion, says company spokeswoman Lisa Howard.
Bon Appétit Management Co., the nation's fourth-largest food service company that provides cafe and catering services to corporations, colleges and universities, implemented a policy in 2004 that doesn't even allow antibiotics for disease prevention. "When you get companies such as McDonald's saying to its suppliers that it will not buy chicken raised on sub-therapeutic antibiotics, the industry takes notice," says Sarah Muirhead, editor of the industry journal Feedstuffs. But why companies are doing it doesn't really matter, says Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "The fact is, they deserve real credit for moving in this direction."
Images of the Day
India. Flowers are being thrown all over Calcutta in celebration of the Day of the Republic.
Palestine. Elections have handed an overwhelming victory to Hamas.
Venezuela. Tattoist Constantino offers his services at the Social Forum in Caracas
Spain. No wounded or dead in the explosion of two bombs by the basque separatists in Bilbao.
January 25, 2006
God is Love. Is Love God?
Text of Benedict XVI's first encyclical, ‘Deus Caritas Est’ has been published today and can be found here
We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John's Gospel describes that event in these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should ... have eternal life” (3:16). In acknowledging the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel's faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which expressed the heart of his existence: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God and the commandment of love for neighbour found in the Book of Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere “command”; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us.
In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. For this reason, I wish in my first Encyclical to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others. That, in essence, is what the two main parts of this Letter are about, and they are profoundly interconnected. The first part is more speculative, since I wanted here—at the beginning of my Pontificate—to clarify some essential facts concerning the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man, together with the intrinsic link between that Love and the reality of human love. The second part is more concrete, since it treats the ecclesial exercise of the commandment of love of neighbour. The argument has vast implications, but a lengthy treatment would go beyond the scope of the present Encyclical. I wish to emphasize some basic elements, so as to call forth in the world renewed energy and commitment in the human response to God's love.
Gas in Latin America
Here is an interesting chart that shows the existing and proposed future gas lines in Latin America. Interesting!
January 24, 2006
Images of the Day
Georgia. Anti-Putin demonstration in Tbilisi
Bolivia. President Evo Morales at the Sugar Feast in the city 600km SE of La Paz.
Brazil. Jefferson Kulig presents his fashion collection in Sao Paolo
Green Pigs!
Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that "glow in the dark". 
The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease. The scientists, from National Taiwan University's Department of Animal Science and Technology, say that although the pigs glow, they are otherwise no different from any others. Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before; but the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better.
In daylight, their eyes and skin are green-tinged They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, the researchers say. To create them, DNA from jellyfish was added to about 265 pig embryos which were implanted in eight different sows. 
The scientists will use the transgenic pigs to study human disease. Because the pig's genetic material encodes a protein that shows up as green, it is easy to spot. So if, for instance, some of its stem cells are injected into another animal, scientists can track how they develop without the need for a biopsy or invasive test. But creating them has not been easy. Many of the altered embryos failed to develop.
The researchers say they hope the new, green pigs will mate with ordinary female pigs to create a new generation - much greater numbers of transgenic pigs for use in research.
January 23, 2006
Photos of the Day
My new friends.
I knew it!!! A sign in DisneyLand, Anaheim, CA.
This is what the kids are offered...
January 22, 2006
L'armee du Pape **fr
Today is the 500th anniversary of the day since the Pope used the Swiss Army Guards.
C’est la plus vieille armée du monde, la plus petite et la plus… photogénique. La garde suisse veille sur la sécurité du pape depuis cinq cents ans, et rien ne semble avoir changé depuis ce 22 janvier 1506, lorsque 150 mercenaires helvétiques, appelés à la rescousse par le pape Jules II, firent leur entrée au Vatican par la porte du Peuple. Cela tient sans doute à cet uniforme incomparable, qui n’a subi que d’infimes retouches depuis sa création. La légende veut qu’il ait été dessiné par Michel-Ange en personne, tandis que des historiens d’art y voient plutôt la patte de Raphaël. Peu importe aux touristes de la place Saint-Pierre qui mitraillent à feu continu ces hallebardiers d’un autre âge, symboles bariolés de la pompe vaticane. Le bleu et le jaune de l’habit sont les couleurs de la famille Della Rovere, à laquelle appartenait Jules II. Son successeur, Léon X, un Médicis, y ajouta le rouge. Le fameux casque à deux pointes (morione), surmonté d’un plumet coloré, est coiffé pour les manifestations officielles, messes, audiences, etc., c’est-à-dire quotidiennement ou presque. Le cou engoncé dans une fraise d’un blanc immaculé, le « suisse » se fige encore un peu plus lorsqu’il enfile sa cuirasse.
L’uniforme complet, un puzzle de 154 pièces, n’est requis que pour les grandes occasions, comme le 6 mai de chaque année, lors de la prestation de serment des nouvelles recrues. Pour le service de tous les jours, l’uniforme de tissu bleu et le béret alpin constituent une tenue plus sobre et confortable, mais non moins « rétro ». Comme l’apparat vestimentaire, la mission n’a pas varié en 500 ans. La formule du serment que prête chaque soldat est comme gravée dans le marbre : « Je jure de servir fidèlement, loyalement et de bonne foi le souverain pontife régnant et ses légitimes successeurs, de me dévouer pour eux de toutes mes forces, sacrifiant, si nécessaire, ma vie pour leur défense. » Le 6 mai 1527, lors du sac de Rome par les lansquenets allemands, 147 des 189 gardes suisses alors en service perdirent la vie pour protéger Clément VII et le mettre en sûreté au château Saint-Ange.
Tous les épisodes pendant lesquels il fallut défendre la papauté les armes à la main ne sont pas aussi glorieux. Ainsi, la garde suisse conserve un souvenir cuisant de l’attentat contre Jean Paul II, le 13 mai 1981, sur la place Saint-Pierre. Ce jour-là, elle a failli dans sa mission, à cause du poids de la tradition et du protocole. Certes, depuis Jean XXIII, les « suisses » n’étaient plus contraints de tomber à genoux à chaque apparition du pape. Mais l’étiquette leur commandait encore de ne jamais tourner le dos au Saint-Père. Une politesse incompatible avec la sécurité.
« C’est pour cela que l’on n’a rien vu venir, regrette Bernard Moret, garde suisse de 1979 à 1999. Si nous avions fait face à la foule, nous aurions sans doute remarqué Ali Agça et empêché qu’il tire. » Cet échec a marqué une première vague de modernisation de la petite armée : recrutement et formation ont été améliorés pour mieux faire face aux nouveaux dangers terroristes. Dans la plus grande discrétion, la troupe s’entraîne au maniement des armes et aux techniques de protection rapprochée comme n’importe quel corps d’élite. Au poste de garde de la porte Sainte- Anne (l’entrée de service du Vatican), une série de fanions orne le mur, derrière le guichet d’accueil. Ce sont les couleurs des cantons suisses qui comptent un ou plusieurs gardes sur les 110 membres de l’effectif. En face, d’autres fanions – plus nombreux – appartiennent aux cantons non représentés. De tout temps, les cantons francophones ont donné moins de gardes que les germanophones, influence calviniste oblige. La première des conditions pour postuler est en effet d’appartenir à la foi catholique.
« La motivation religieuse a été très forte dans mon choix, se souvient Bernard Moret. J’étais enfant de choeur jusqu’à l’âge de 20 ans dans mon Jura natal, j’en ai parlé à mon curé, qui m’a aidé. » Quelques lettres de recommandation suffisaient. Aujourd’hui, il faut suivre un cursus de sélection sophistiqué, faire une formation, et même passer des tests psychologiques. Ces derniers ont été introduits après la « tragédie ». Ainsi appelle- t-on au Vatican le drame du 4 mai 1998, survenu dans l’appartement du commandant Aloïs Estermann. Nommé depuis quelques heures seulement, cet homme de 44 ans devait être officiellement intronisé chef de la garde le surlendemain. Vers 21 heures, il était retrouvé mort, tué d’une balle de pistolet, ainsi que sa femme, Gladys Meza Romero, 48 ans, et le vice-caporal Cédric Tornay, 23 ans. L’énigme de ce huis clos mortel à trois continue de susciter des interrogations. L’enquête a officiellement conclu à « un coup de folie » du jeune garde, qui aurait tué le couple avant de se suicider avec son arme de service. La famille Tornay n’accepte toujours pas cette version, ses avocats pointant régulièrement les incohérences et les zones d’ombre du dossier. A l’époque, la presse avait évoqué les pistes les plus diverses, comme un dépit amoureux homosexuel ou une machination des services secrets est-allemands. Plus prosaïquement, de nombreux témoignages firent état de relations tendues au sein de la « petite Suisse ». Certains ont craint que la garde ne survive pas au scandale. Dès les cérémonies du 6 mai pourtant, le secrétaire d’Etat, Angelo Sodano, écartait l’hypothèse d’une dissolution : « Les nuages d’un jour ne peuvent obscurcir un ciel de cinq cents ans. »Appelé au lendemain de la « tragédie » par Mgr Sodano, Elmar Mäder a reçu une mission claire, d’abordcommeadjoint, puiscommecommandant : rénover, nettoyer. Preuve qu’il y avait un malaise chez les « soldats du pape ».
« Depuis que je suis à la tête de la garde, en 2002, je peux dire que j’ai créé un bon rapport avec tous, des hallebardiers jusqu’à mes seconds, s’est-il réjoui récemment dans la presse italienne. Avant, il y avait un rapport fortement hiérarchique ; Estermann ne tutoyait personne, même pas ses officiers. » Après quelques années de difficultés pour le recrutement, la garde a retrouvé son attrait. Pour postuler, il faut être citoyen suisse de sexe masculin, avoir de 19 à 30 ans, mesurer au moins 1,74 mètre, être diplomé et « avoir une réputation irréprochable ». Il faut surtout être à jour de ses obligations militaires, car la Confédération helvétique interdit tout service à l’étranger. Le contrat est de deux ans.
Les anciens gardes – l’association compte plus de 900 membres – reconnaissent que cette expérience au service du pape est un atout supplémentaire sur uncurriculum vitae, au moment du retour à la vie civile. Beaucoup trouvent du travail dans la police ou les douanes ; certains lâchent l’uniforme pour la soutane. Mais il est possible aussi de faire carrière dans la garde suisse. Si l’admission est réservée aux célibataires, on peut se marier à partir du grade de caporal. Le commandant Mäder, 40 ans, était titulaire d’une société de gestion fiduciaire avant de répondre à l’appel du cardinal Sodano. Avec sa femme, ses deux garçons et sa fille, il s’est installé dans « le quartier suisse » : trois bâtiments et une chapelle autour d’une cour qui résonne de cris d’enfants. Certains officiers sont logés ailleurs dans la cité du Vatican, quelquesuns même à l’extérieur.
Pour les simples gardes, c’est la vie de caserne, avec extinction des feux à minuit. « Les gars sont à deux par chambre, explique l’ex-garde Bernard Moret. Mais elles sont bien agencées, avec une mezzanine. Il y a plus d’intimité qu’avant. » Caserne n’est pas couvent : les jeunes Suisses ont leurs habitudes dans les trattorias et les bars du Borgo Pio. La plupart se marient avec des Italiennes rencontrées dans le quartier, ou pendant les tours de garde à la porte Sainte- Anne.
Marcel Riedi, 30 ans, dont dix ans de garde suisse, a rencontré son épouse, d’origine polonaise, sur la place Saint-Pierre, pendant le jubilé de l’an 2000. Sa fierté, raconte-t-il souvent, est d’avoir été marié par Mgr Joseph Ratzinger, le 3 mai 2004, dans la petite église Stéphane-des-Abysses, au coeur du Vatican.
Ainsi va la vie quotidienne de cette drôle d’armée, rassérénée par les méthodes simples du commandant Elmar Mäder, un officier supérieur d’extraction modeste, né dans une famille nombreuse du canton de Saint-Gall, alors que la direction de la garde suisse a longtemps été réservée à d’aristocratiques dynasties : celle des Pfyffer von Altishofen a donné 11 commandants sur les 34 qui se sont succédé en un demi-millénaire.
Mais après avoir redressé l’image de la garde, Elmar Mäder a d’autres ambitions : il espère reconquérir un peu du terrain perdu, ces dernières décennies, sur la gendarmerie vaticane (130 hommes). Rebaptisée corps de vigilance par une réforme de Paul VI en 1970, elle fait untravail de police alors que les gardes suisses n’ont pas le pouvoir d’arrêter quelqu’un. Benoît XVI, qui a salué la « petite armée aux grands idéaux », accédera-t-il au souhait du commandant Mäder d’étoffer ses effectifs pour mieux assurer la fonction de garde du corps, notamment pendant les déplacements ? Ce qui inquiète le plus les spécialistes de la sécurité, c’est lemanquede coordination entre les « suisses », la gendarmerie, et aussi les inspecteurs de la police nationale italienne qui contribuent à la surveillance de la place Saint-Pierre. Le « Comité pour la sécurité », l’organisme censé favoriser la coopération et l’échange d’informations entre les corps armés pontificaux, ne se réunit plus que deux ou trois fois par an. Un état de fait que vient de dénoncer dans la presse un ancien responsable de la sécurité auprès de Vatican. Inutile de compter sur la garde suisse pour prolonger la polémique sur une éventuelle guerre des polices au Vatican. Elle a un point commun avec toutes les armées du monde : c’est une grande muette.
January 21, 2006
NYT: Beyond Coincidences
By WILLIAM GRIMES
A woman in Alabama decided to visit her sister. Her sister, unbeknownst to her, decided the same. They hit each other head-on on a rural highway. Both died. And both drove Jeeps. That counts as a rare coincidence, although not as rare, perhaps, as the case of Roy Cleveland Sullivan, a Virginia forest ranger who was struck by lightning seven times, or the existence of an ice dealer named I. C. Shivers. 
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, human beings resist the idea that events occur in random fashion. They are highly receptive to divine messages that suggest otherwise, as in the strange tale of Mrs. Willard Lowell of Berkeley, Calif., who discovered that she had locked herself out of her house when the postman arrived with a letter. In the letter was her spare front-door key, returned by her brother, who had taken it home with him by mistake after a recent visit. Events like this send a shiver down the spine, but the math behind strange coincidences shows that most people simply have a poor grasp of statistics. The odds against meeting someone else at a party with your birthday are not 365 to 1. In a room with just 23 people, the chances that two of them will share the same birthday are better than even.
A world without a constant barrage of bizarre coincidences would be much more remarkable than the reverse. It is not all that unusual to have a dream that accurately predicts a future event, or for two golfers to achieve a hole in one on the same hole. On average, everyone should have a prophetic dream once every 19 years, and the odds of a double hole-in-one, although apparently staggering at 1.85 billion to 1, ensure that this occurs about once a year. It is a very safe bet that more such coincidences are on the way, as the world becomes more populated, and the volume of information grows. As the authors put it, "The statistician's law of large numbers states that if the sample is very large, even extremely unlikely things become likely." That includes the perfect hand dealt out to the four members of a British whist club in 1998, who each received 13 cards of a single suit.
Something deep in the mind resists the explanations of the statisticians, however. Evolution may be to blame. "We have been so successful as a species precisely because we are good at making connections between events and spotting patterns and regularities in nature," explains Christopher French, a psychologist. "The price we have paid is a tendency to sometimes detect connections and patterns that are not really there."
That tendency would account for the discovery that playing the Pink Floyd album "Dark Side of the Moon" while watching "The Wizard of Oz" generates almost as many startling coincidences as the correspondences detailed in "The Bible Code," a numerological analysis of the Bible that uncovered, among many other things, a prediction of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. Mr. Plimmer and Mr. King, who first explored this territory in a series of shows for BBC Radio 4, scramble to fill their allotted pages. They spend far too much time with Richard Wiseman, author of "The Luck Factor," and his training programs designed to turn miserable, unlucky skeptics into lucky winners. They stuff the book with several anecdotes that sound too good to be true, and even more that are too true to be good. George Frideric Handel and Jimi Hendrix lived at adjacent addresses in London. Nine women at a British supermarket, all working at the same cash register, became pregnant in a 10-month period. A man trying to console his next-door neighbor after a painful breakup put the former couple's favorite record on the turntable. Ooooh.
On the other hand, it is deeply satisfying to know that a Canadian farmer named McDonald has the postal code EIEIO, and there is at least half a screenplay in the tale of a bank robber who, hitting the same bank and the same teller a second time, escaped because the bank guard and the managers were in a back office reviewing videotapes of the first robbery.
The award for the most painful coincidence in recorded history must go to the poet Simon Armitage, who chanced upon a used copy of a book of his poems in a trash bin outside a thrift store. On the title page was the following inscription, in his own handwriting: "To Mum and Dad."
Les mots à la guillotine **fr
par Marianne Payot
Sous la Terreur, un grammairien entend expurger le français de ses vocables inutiles. Une fable cocasse de Frédéric Cathala
Un drôle d'oiseau, ce monsieur Cathala! Après nous avoir conté, en septembre 2004, les tribulations ubuesques d'un mathématicien fou sur fond de Première Guerre mondiale (Le Théorème de Roitelet), le voilà à Paris, en pleine Terreur, aux côtés d'un grammairien cinglé. .
Au centre de son épopée de l'horreur, le citoyen Morille Marmouset, donc, pas vraiment innocent ni vraiment coupable, juste aveuglé par sa croyance en la Raison et animé d'un grand projet philosophique: le Trésor de la langue française, soit un recueil de mille mots, racines de toutes choses, définis en octosyllabes patriotiques. Grâce à ce néofrançais, «langue régénérée pour un peuple régénéré», le chaos se transformera en harmonie, le raisonnable primera. «Moins de mots, moins de maux et réciproquement», tel est le credo de celui qui se veut le Lavoisier de la grammaire, le Condorcet du vocabulaire. Pour mener à bien son catéchisme républicain, il devra éliminer dangereux quiproquos, perfides synonymes et trompeuses métaphores. Mais aussi se jouer des deux polices politiques qui l'utilisent, mettre au jour les agissements d'une secte bouffonne, aider - involontairement - un espion anglais, grand ordonnateur d'un complot contre le «dictateur» et les députés de la Convention, et, surtout, défendre bec et ongles la sublime ci-devant Sidonie, dont le petit bonhomme hideux s'est amouraché. Ouf!
Généreux, volubile - trop, parfois - l'auteur jongle avec les mots, les personnages, les situations, marie cocasserie et allégorie, entraînant le lecteur dans un récit aussi haletant que bien ficelé. Du bel ouvrage, assurément, citoyen Cathala!
New York Hack
Here is a very, VERY interesting blog - we from the point of view of a taxi driver. A hoot! Thanks, IV, for a precious link!
New York Hack
January 20, 2006
Images of the Day
Turkey. Unsold Eggs in a Shop
Indonesia. Peasant manifestation in Manila.
Antarctica. Greenpeace volunteers form a message to the world.
January 19, 2006
LeMonde: La machine Putine **fr
Take a look at a wonderful multimedia show (you can turn off the sound if you do not want to hear French language) about the illustrious Russian leader.
La machine Poutine
LEMONDE.FR | 18.03.05
Images of the Day
Ukraine. Prime-Minister Viktor Yuschenko.
Syria. The Anti-Israel pact has been signed by Iran and Syria.
January 18, 2006
Images of the Day
Iraq. Bagdad. A parent of a killed child.
Germany. Warnemunde. Dead Whale being transported onto a truck.
Mongolia. Ulaan Baator. The temperature is below 30C.
Vietnam. Nostalgia at the Hanoi market.
М-да..... **ru
Our Parisian correspondent got my attention to this - whatever that is, I can't even find a word for this piece of... well, I'll call it a text, and that's that.
Олег Кашин:
Открытое письмо людям Европы
Европейцы! Потомки великих народов прошлого! Французы, британцы, голландцы, шведы, норвежцы, датчане, ирландцы, итальянцы и прочие представители народов колыбели цивилизации – древней Европы! В тяжелый час, в час нависшей над Европой смертельной опасности, обращаюсь я к вам. 
Французы! Французы и прочие европейцы – те, которым только предстоит столкнуться с погромами и агрессией пришельцев. Слушайте меня, европейцы. Взгляните в глаза правде. Вы проиграли свою родину. Ее больше нет. Не звон колокола, но крик муэдзина будит сегодня ваш город по утрам. Дети ваших сегодняшних соседей завтра станут хозяевами вашей страны. Вы, представители коренного населения, станете национальным меньшинством. Вам предстоит молить о терпимости, и никто не вспомнит о том, что когда-то эта страна была вашей. Никто не вспомнит о том, что ваш народ, ваша культура, ваши предки положили начало жизни на этой земле.
«Вы проиграли свою родину. Ее больше нет. Не звон колокола, но крик муэдзина будит сегодня ваш город по утрам» Нам, русским, Господь судил пережить то, что переживаете вы сегодня, немного раньше, чем вам. Без малого пятнадцать лет назад мы лишились страны, которую с любовью и болью по крупицам веками собирали наши предки. Строили православные храмы на берегах трех великих океанов. Обращали туземцев в христианство, давали им письменность, строили для них дома и заводы. В итоге – мы были вышвырнуты с земель, ставших нам родными. Вы лишились могил своих королей? Мы лишились Киева – города, еще в древности названного матерью наших городов. Лишились Севастополя – города русской славы, и всего Крыма. Лишились казачьих станиц Южной Сибири, по недоразумению названной Казахстаном. Русской крепости Кушка в каракумских степях. Отвоеванного Суворовым Измаила. Сотен тысяч квадратных километров, политых кровью наших предков.
читать дальше эту ...
TLS: Logic at bay
by Philip Pettit
THE STAG HUNT AND THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE.
By Brian Skyrms. 149pp.
Cambridge University Press. £40 (paperback, £15.99).
US $55 (paperback, $20.99). - 0 521 82651 9
When you have moved the initially unhappy pieces, other pieces will become unhappy and you will have to move them also, in a second round; and for the same reasons you may have to go to a third and fourth and further round as well. The intuitively very surprising thing, however, as Schelling pointed out, is that from any more or less random starting distribution on the board, these rounds will almost invariably take you to a highly segregationist pattern, with black pieces clustering with black, and white with white. A not very segregationist strategy on the part of each household in the community will lead under an "evolutionary dynamic" to a more or less totally segregated outcome.
Schelling's toy model of segregation offers a good way of presenting the topics covered in this dense but exciting book. Where Schelling focuses on the specific problem of avoiding segregation, Brian Skyrms attends to the problem of dealing with a much more general predicament that he describes, after a story from Rousseau, as the stag hunt. And where Schelling's model uncovers the effects of one particular strategy under one set of assumptions, Skyrms explores many different strategies, under many different sets of assumptions.
The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure is comprehensive and ambitious in scope. It is informed by an evolving body of theory that spans biology, economics and mathematics, and it is developed on the basis of experiments in behavioural economics as well as on the basis of the vast computer simulations that are now possible. These simulations play a role analogous to that of Schelling's simple draughtboard.
The opening claim of Skyrms's book is that whereas many social theorists have tried to model a range of social predicaments as instances of the "prisoner's dilemma", most fit the stag hunt better. In the classic prisoner's dilemma, two conspirators are separately offered a deal designed to make each confess (ie, defect on the other). Each is given a deal under which he will do better by confessing to the joint crime no matter what the other does.
If the other refuses to confess (cooperates), the other will go to prison for twelve years, whereas he, by confessing (defecting), will go free. If the other also confesses (defects) they will both get ten years, but were he to refuse to confess (were he to cooperate) he would get twelve. If neither confesses (if they cooperate with one another) they will be put away on some trumped-up charge for two years, so that joint cooperation is attractive. But in this scenario, joint cooperation is unlikely. The worst pay-off of all attaches to cooperating while the other defects, so that cooperation is hazardous, and the best pay-off attaches to defecting while the other cooperates, so that defecting is tempting. Lone defection is more attractive than joint cooperation, joint cooperation is more attractive than joint defection, and joint defection is more attractive than lone cooperation.
The change in the stag hunt game is that while lone cooperation remains the worst outcome, joint cooperation becomes more attractive than lone or joint defection. Thus while no one is tempted to defect on others, they will each want an assurance that others are going to cooperate before cooperating themselves; there is still a danger or risk of ending up in the worst position, as the lone cooperator.
Rousseau's story casts the members of a team that is hunting a stag as the cooperators and defection as the act of leaving the team in order to chase a hare on one's own, where this may make the team too small to catch the stag.
Getting a hare for sure is better than chasing a deer in a team that may not catch it; but being part of a team that successfully hunts a stag is better than managing to get a hare.
Skyrms is certainly right that this sort of predicament is pretty typical of social life. Getting together in successful compacts with others is often better for each of us individually than refusing contracts or reneging on contractual arrangements, since such "defection" will mean that we are marginalized. But entering a compact is a hazardous business, if the worst outcome of all is to be the only one doing his or her cooperative bit. What Skyrms does in this book is to explore a variety of factors that can make it easier or harder for players in a stag hunt game to achieve a cooperative outcome. In particular, he looks at effective factors within an evolutionary framework akin to Schelling's, where the aim is to track the outcomes that are likely to emerge over a number of rounds.
The field to which the work belongs is that of evolutionary game theory, rather than game theory applied only at a particular time.
The factors that are likely to affect success or failure include: the different strategies adopted by participants at the beginning of the evolution; the rule followed by players in revising their strategies at any later round; the proportions of those strategies in the population; the clustering or lack of clustering among players with similar strategies; the ability of players to select those with whom they wish to associate; and their capacity to communicate with each other, even in a situation where cheating is possible.
Skyrms concentrates in particular on how the prospects for an increase in cooperation, and in the resistance of a group of cooperators to invasion by defectors, are affected by clustering, communication and the capacity to associate with whoever you want.
The book is a treasure trove of interesting and intriguing results on the relevance of such factors for the solution of the stag hunt game, and so for the achievement of a certain social order. Readers may find it hard to put the results together into a single general lesson or set of lessons but no one will fail to be surprised as Skyrms shows, case after case, just how counter-intuitively things can work out. If you were surprised to hear of Schelling's result, be warned: you ain't heard nothing yet.
The only respect in which I found the book disappointing is that it never stretches beyond the confines of a progress report on where work in this area has been going. It is terse to the point of sometimes being telegraphic and it doesn't give any sense of where the approach fits with other approaches, or what its particular limitations are. One limitation that strikes me, for example, is that I do not see how the stag hunt applies to the "free-riding" type of predicament that is central to so much social life. It is characteristic of this predicament that, short of coercive law, or perhaps the sanction of disesteem, no defector can expect to be punished by a large mass of others if their individual defection makes no discernible difference. Those listeners who fail to contribute to public radio in the US, for example, will not expect to be punished by contributors, even if their cover is blown. Lone defection remains more egoistically attractive in this scenario than cooperation, since one will be able to enjoy the cooperative good without paying the cooperative cost. In this respect the situation resembles the prisoner's dilemma more than it does the stag hunt.
Such shortcomings in the book are inevitable, given that it is condensed into a volume of not much more than a hundred pages. Experts may be grateful for the way in which it cuts to the chase, but most others would benefit from a more extensive, more leisurely treatment of these wonderful topics. Inside this thin book there is a fat tome waiting to get out. I hope that Brian Skyrms will give us that tome one day; but in the meantime there is lots to celebrate about this rather more austere trailer.
January 17, 2006
Images of the day
Mongolia. Manifestation in Uulan Baator, in support of the former Communist.
USA. Clint Vickers Leans on his mother during the military ceremony
Congo. Kapongo Lenge, 88 years old, in a refugee camp.
LeMonde: To each his own disorder **fr
par Catherine Vincent
17 Janvier 2006
« Avoir une chambre bien rangée, cela ne présente a priori aucun intérêt pour un enfant », remarque la psychothérapeute Emmanuelle Rigon. Mais comme on se charge très tôt – à la crèche, à l’école, à la maison – de le lui inculquer, ce facteur essentiel d’intégration sociale ne tarde pas à faire sens pour le petit d’homme. Véhiculant au passage toute une série de concepts – autorité, obéissance, toutepuissance parentale – qui laisseront durablement leur marque.
Une terrible angoisse
Selon qu’il ait intégré le modèle familial ou en ait pris le contre-pied, selon qu’il en garde un souvenir heureux ou douloureux, chacun adoptera ainsi à l’âge adulte, souvent à son insu, un mode de relation particulier avec l’ordre ménager. Avec, aux deux extrêmes, des comportements quasi pathologiques. L’attitude compulsive de celui qui ne peut s’empêcher de passer l’aspirateur deux fois par jour ou de ranger ses vêtements par couleurs cache toujours une terrible angoisse. Et celui qui se laisse envahir par un véritable capharnaüm – au point, par exemple, de ne plus pouvoir ouvrir les portes – est en général en proie à de vraies difficultés psychiques.
Et les autres ? Ceux qui, ni grands obsessionnels ni spécialement pagailleurs, gèrent tant bien que mal le bric-à-brac récurrent de leur intérieur ou de leur bureau ? « Quelle que soit notre manière de vivre, il se produit chez chacun de nous un déplacement symbolique entre le psychisme et la gestion des objets », affirme Mme Rigon, pour qui « le chaos représente la vie, et l’ordre absolu, la mort ».
Besoin d’ordre ou tolérance au désordre, les forces qui nous dirigent dans ces directions opposées varient selon les moments de la vie, selon que l’on est seul, en couple ou en famille, selon le sexe, l’âge et les humeurs… Mais elles recèlent, toujours plus de sens qu’elles n’en laissent voir.
« Les notions d’ordre et de désordre ne sont pas seulement psychologiques, rappelle Alberto Eiguer, elles sont aussi éthiques et politiques. » Pour ce psychanalyste, auteur de L’Inconscient de la maison (éd. Dunod, 2004, 164 p., 21,90 euros), l’excès de rangement constitue « une tentative de s’assurer que rien n’est désordonné du point de vue moral, à l’aide de rituels souvent très stricts et d’une infinité de contenants » (tiroirs, boîtes, etc.). La tentation inverse étant de « molester cet ordre moral, en laissant libre cours aux affects et aux pulsions inconscientes ».
D’un côté, la contrainte et la sécurité ; de l’autre, l’imprévu et la liberté ? Quoi qu’il en soit, certains ne pourront s’épanouir que dans un indescriptible fouillis. D’autres sauront, dans un intérieur un peu négligé, ménager des niches de rangement (« Dans l’armoire vit un centre d’ordre qui protège toute la maison contre
un désordre sans borne », écrivait le philosophe Gaston Bachelard). D’autres encore, pour se sentir à l’aise, devront faire sans cesse place nette autour d’eux.
« Le fantasme de Mary Poppins »
De même, certains vivront entourés de piles bien rangées, dans lesquelles ils ne trouveront jamais ce qu’ils cherchent, tandis que d’autres sauront sans hésiter repêcher leur bien dans l’endroit le plus improbable… Au désordre apparent ne correspond pas toujours celui qu’on a dans la tête. Mais une chose est sûre : personne ou presque, en la matière, n’est véritablement satisfait de soi. Et les femmes – toujours majoritairement responsables des tâches domestiques – bien moins encore que les hommes. « Ma clientèle est essentiellement composée de femmes, et la majeure partie d’entre elles me demandent de les aider à mieux s’organiser dans leur maison », confirme Laurence Einfalt. Ex-cadre en entreprise et diplômée de psychologie, cette passionnée d’efficacité raconte comment elle fut frappée de rencontrer, sur son lieu de travail, « tant de femmes talentueuses freinées dans leur carrière par leurs difficultés à gérer le désordre ». Au point de créer il y a deux ans, à Paris, l’agence Jara (site Internet : www.agence-jara.com), spécialisée dans le conseil en organisation personnelle. Un défi qui lui a déjà permis d’aider une cinquantaine de femmes, sur leur lieu de vie ou (plus rarement) de travail.
« Quand je les rencontre pour la première fois, elles ont toutes le fantasme de Mary Poppins, confie-t-elle. Inconsciemment ou non, elles espèrent que je vais claquer dans mes doigts et résoudre par magie leurs problèmes de rangement ! » Mais on ne change pas en quelques semaines des modes de vie qui, souvent, remontent à l’enfance.
Après avoir identifié les besoins de ses clientes, Laurence Einfalt les fait donc travailler en profondeur, à raison d’un rendez- vous par mois pendant environ un an, pour qu’elles parviennent à changer leurs habitudes. En veillant, tout de même, à ce que ces grandes débordées ne basculent pas dans l’excès inverse. Si l’on finissait vraiment de tout ranger, n’est-ce pas la vie elle-même qui finirait?
Golden Globes in a minute and a half
For those of you who did not want to spend couple of hours watching the presentations of the Golden Globe awards which were NOT in high definition (shame, shame, shame!) - here is a brief extract of all the highlights, truly!
January 16, 2006
Images of the day
Palestine. Hamas supporters during the demonstration of support in Gaza
Ivory Coast. During the demonstration in Abidjan
Australia. Gilles Simon at the Australia Open in Melbourne
Later Posts/Вперёд
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