Soon leaving...

Today we started preparing to leave for Costa Rica. Between Mike working on a web site at the same time as trying desperatly to finish his album (pre-mastering) and me trying to organize my packing, needing to reinstall all software on Mike's laptop, and discussing my wedding dress over email with my mom, we managed to go out for necessary shopping. We got one of those flat fanny pack things you put under your shirt, and some locks the airport security has access to so you can lock your luggage.... I also set up a new blog: Planetary Vagrant That way both Mike and I can post to it, and it will be dedicated to our trips, and I can keep this blog here as my personal ranting and spitting place! ;-) We'll try to update the travel blog as much as we can, but knowing that there is only a dial up connection where we're going, we'll only do our best. We arrive in Liberia (Guanacaste) on friday (leaving the US on thursday) and that's all we know for now. We did sign up for a week of intensive spanish classes in playa Samara in the Guanacaste region on the pacific coast, so we have to be there on monday, but before and after that we don't really know where we'll be.... Samara looks like this apparently: We'll confirm that on the other blog very sooooooon! There, that was my vague post of the day! CHEERS!

And God created Bush....

The Democracy for California blog posted this, and I thought my page was missing some caricature action!!!

Bob Dylan and Juan Cole... Brilliant!

I can't get enough of Juan Cole's posts! Click here for the latest Juan Cole article It's quite the blow on our "dear" low percentage approval rating government!

Robert Kennedy Jr. for Air America

I'm on the Air America mailing list and today I received an email from Robert Kennedy JR sent to this list. I thought it was a nice message and it is also a real necessary action since this radio is probably the only completely "free speech" left wing place where we can get information without it having gone through the approval of the government! Here is the letter/email:

Dear Friend of Air America: I'm thankful for you. With your help, voters across America have sent a powerful message to the Bush Administration and their right-wing cronies. The party's over. Last Tuesday's sweeping victories for Democrats and progressives pulled back the curtain from the much-vaunted Bush-Cheney-Rove political machine, revealing what Air America listeners have known all along: there's nobody there. After five years of lies, fear-mongering and electoral manipulation, voters from New Jersey to Virginia said, "Enough." Governor-elect Jon Corzine summed it up succinctly in his acceptance speech: "I want to thank the people of New Jersey for rejecting the Bush-Rove tactics that we see in politics." And it was more than just the victories in New Jersey and Virginia that sent shockwaves through the Republican establishment. The right-wing agenda took a major hit from voters across the nation last week: · In St. Paul, Minnesota the incumbent Democratic mayor, who last year endorsed George W. Bush for a second term, was trounced in his own reelection bid by a Democrat who made that endorsement the centerpiece of his campaign. · In Maine, an effort to repeal a law that protects gays and lesbians from discrimination was defeated · In Dover, Pennsylvania, all eight of the local school board members who supported the teaching of "intelligent design" were voted out. But now is not the time to sit back and rest on our victories. Our fight to restore progressive values in America still has a long way to go. With your support, Air America Radio will remain at the forefront of that fight. There are three ways that you can help right now: 1) Join the Air America community by strongly supporting the AAR Associates campaign by clicking here: https://secure.airamericaradio.com. 2) If you're listening to Air America Radio on your local station, thank them for carrying your favorite AAR programs. 3) If you don't yet have an Air America Radio affiliate in your area, let us know today. The biggest obstacle progressives face isn't even the Bush Administration or a Republican-controlled Congress. Our greatest challenge continues to be the stranglehold of the right-wing propaganda machine over our nation's media. Thirty percent of Americans now say that their primary source of news is talk radio. And fully ninety percent of talk radio is dominated by the leading propagandists of the Right: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage and their factually-challenged ilk. With your strong support, Air America Radio has defied the so-called "experts" who said that progressive talk radio would never succeed. In less than twenty months, Air America Radio has grown to include more than 70 stations, reaching over 60% of the country. More than ever, we must continue that growth. With the 2006 mid-term elections less than a year away, we need Air America Radio to remain a powerful voice for progressive values in the public square. Become a part of the Air America community by joining the AAR Associates campaign today at https://secure.airamericaradio.com. As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, there are strong signs that the right-wing's domination of talk radio is finally coming to an end. And that's something for which we can all be thankful. Sincerely, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Naturalization application

Following the previous post I downloaded the form for application for citizenship. I know, I'm ranting again... Funny, one of the thing to fill is a name change. Optional. This is sort of an interesting thing that is still here, although now it's YOUR choice and not the customs officer's, but that's besides the point. The form goes on with addresses and such to fill. Then Part 5 is about criminal records. To be filled for the FBI. Of course as most americans do, I have an FBI file... a bank file... the one they start on you when you don't pay off your account after closing it... What? I was in college, I thought it was taken care of! Damn it! :-P Anyway, you have to say whether you are a female or a male (what if I'm both? nah, just kidding!), height, weight, and race... not optional... Is there affirmative action on citizenship application? Because in that case I'll put all my ethnicities, it'll be fun! Ok, I'll just put caucasian and asian, but I took so much of the caucasian part that when I get to the interview they are actually going to ask me if I believed there WAS affirmative action in this case. hahaha Following is pretty much a resume, you need to state all addresses for the past 5 years, there is not enough room for me, I moved 5 times in 1,5 years not even 2 years ago! Where you worked the past 5 years. And then the best part, "how many total days did you spend outside the United States during the past five years"... How do I know that? And "list below all the trips of 24 hours or more that you have taken outside of the United States since becoming a Lawful Permanent Resident. (...)" Huuuh...... Right.... 5 years.... That sucks! I think we left 3 or 4 times last year, and this year alone we're traveling 6 times if not more... so I'm definitely going to need an extra page of these! oh man, I didn't know I was supposed to keep ALL my tickets! This application is going to take forever to fill out, I better start now! Part 10 has funny questions Mike had already been surprised to see on the green form one needs to fill out for visiting the US (foreigners and non permanent residents, I think). It had the some of the same questions, here is a sample: "Have you ever been declared legally incompetent or been confined to a mental institution within the last five years?" Oh sure, if by institution you mean college! heyhey.. oh wait, I've been out of college for a little over 5 years... Darn it! "Have you ever been a member of or in any way associated (either directly or indirectly) with: a. The Communist Party? b. Any other totalitarian party? c. A terrorist organization?" If I say C, do I still get in? ok then, I'll go for.... what's totalitarian again? Oh yes, ok... Then no, no.... Sorry... Next. "Have you ever advocated the overthrow os any government by force or violence?" No, but I sure wish I could, although intellectually more than violently but what the heck! Will you let me do that after I get my citizenship? Oh, right, you read my blog and you don't want me in this country... Riiiight! "Have you every persecuted any person because of race, religion, national origin, membership in a particular social group or political opinion?" No, but YOU have! See question about the Communist Party! "Between March 23, 1933 and May 8, 1945, did you work for or associate in any way with: a. The Nazi government of Germany? b. Any government in any area (1) occupied by, (2) allied with, or (3) established with the help of the Nazi government of Germany? c. Any German, Nazi, or S.S military unit, paramilitary unit, self-defense unit, vigilante unit, citizen unit, police unit, government agency or office, extermination camp, concentration camp, prisoner of war camp, prison, labor camp, or transit camp?" Associated in the sense that my great grand father was a prisoner in a camp, yes! Other than that, I guess I would become a citizen under my "favorite" nazi since I would get this citizenship before 2008! "Have you ever committed a crime or offense for which you were not arrested?" If writing this blog is an offense or a crime, then yes! But you DO want opinionated people as citizens [waving Jedi hands]! "Have you ever: a. Been a habitual drunkard? b. Been a prostitute, or procured anyone for prostitution? c. Sold or smuggled controlled substances, illegal drugs or narcotics? d. Been married to more than one person at the same time? e. Helped anyone enter or try to enter the US illegally? f. Gambled illegally or received income from illegal gambling? g. Failed to support your dependents or to pay alimony?" -Drunkard, proud to say no, although again, I went to college... -Prostitute, no! -Sold or smuggled... no... Of course not! -Been married with several people, I'd love to! Only if one cooks, the other massages me, and another cleans... I only need 3! Other than that, I'm afraid I've only been married once at a time... I know.. BORING! -Helped anyone? God no, help people? What more do you want? -No gambling, though I'd love to receive money! -I did fail to support my hamster once... I encourage anybody to answer these questions to help me!!!!!

American naturalization manual.

Ahhh, American citizenship.... I downloaded the "naturalization manual" to start reading about it since I have to make a choice about applying for citizenship or not. If I choose to do it, I can put in my application starting in February... How can I choose? it's so hard to want this citizenship these days! If only I could have been eligible in the Clinton years. *sigh*... The pros are that I would be able to vote (big plus!!!! I enjoy civic rights!), I would have the same citizenship as my husband (future husband = future dad of my children) which I think is important when we have children, and last one is that I might be less scared to protest! The cons are that... well, how do I say this... I would be American!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH! Ok, I'm exaggerating, obviously I love "my" americans, meaning that I don't hang out with the fanatics I hate so much whether they be christians, jews, muslims or others! SO, in light of that, I do love the good sides of America, the first being the complete opposite to the bad french side of being so self conscious. I know it sounds superficial, but since I moved here I've been wearing what I want, when I want, nobody really cares. When I lived in Paris, it was close to having to dress up to take down the trash... Not kidding! I really like that freedom here. It helps my artistic expression as well, not the clothes but the whole symbol of this! (though I know that being older now I would take it differently if I was still there...) I probably will apply for the citizenship because of the list of pros already written above. In any case, the manual is actually very interesting, and I have to share! First of all, even though people forget this sometimes, I think it's a quote that should be written in public transportation and other public places so everyone sees it regularly: "The United States is a nation of immigrants. Throughout our history, immigrants have come here seeking a better way of life and have strengthened our nation in the process." And then you're reminded that the american citizenship might be the best one you choose among the menu you get at the door after being sat...: "Deciding to become a US citizen is one of the most important decisions in a person's life. If you decide to apply for naturalization you will be showing your commitment to the United States. You will also be showing your loyalty to its Constitution and its people." Ok.. I can go with that, although "commitment" and "loyalty" are strong words, it can be taken in many different ways, I choose to take it in the sense that I need to respect everybody else's opinions, religions and cultures of this country! I definitely can abide by that! "The Oath of Allegiance includes several promises you must make when you become a US citizen, including promises to: -give up prior allegiances to other countries; -support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States; -swear allegiance to the United States; and -serve the country when required" I thought I could keep my french citizenship, both countries accept dual citizenship, so why do I have to give up my allegiances to France? Ok ok, I know, we never have to recite any allegiances to anything in class there, except maybe knowing our anthem, but that's about it.. Still, I don't want to give up my "frenchness", which includes my right to vote there, which to me suggests an allegiance to that country! Another question... How do I defend the Constitution? Is it attacked? By who? Nobody told me! Aaahhh, right, I forgot, Osama Ben Laden... No? Oh, I forgot, it's not him anymore, right, oh man, I'm going to flunk the test! >-] Commenting on the the last sentence in this Oath... Well, I will have to keep this for myself until I take the exam because I don't want to make that opinion too public. hum hum! Then the manual pretty much has charts you can read to see if you are eligible or not. It's easy for me because I fall in the %90 who have been resident aliens for at least 5 years (yes, I know, I'm an alien in L.A!). The rest of this document continues with a lot of insistence on the fact that you have to give up all allegiances to other countries, and the Oath itself says: "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen(...)" I guess so much for wanting to vote for the next presidential election in France.... Why does the american government accept dual citizenships then? I mean, it's an Oath I have to take! What do I do!? I have to swear to this or I don't get my citizenship! But I don't want to give up my french rights! They are MY rights, and the main one is to vote! GGRRRRR!!!!! The last thing I thought was interesting was the choice of words for the definition in the glossary at the end for the Constitution: "Constitution: The Supreme law of the United States. It may be changed only through amendment by Congress and ratification by three fourths of the states"... Wow, Supreme huh!? I always associated this term with "Divine" for some reason... I thought the Constitution had no mention of religion!? Then I got past being aghast, and realized I didn't know that the Constitution could only be changed by 3/4th of the states on top of Congress approval... Now THAT's amazing! I was wondering why the Constitution had never been changed since it was made, what, about 200 years ago? I always compare with the french structure and in France the Constitution has been rewritten many times (15 times to be exact), so I'm somewhat puzzled sometimes. But I learn everyday :-) Much pondering ahead of me.... "Hard to see the dark side is"....

World war I family photos

I've spent some time now scanning a lot of photos I was given by my mother who had found them in my grand mother's house after she passed, and who herself had found them in her own mother's house after she passed.... That's why I looooove photos, because not only it helps remembering things we forget, but it's also fascinating for later generations to see those! My great great grand father in World war I with other soldiers. He's the one all the way to the right, sitting on a sort of barrel: The same great great grand father in the famous tranchées... they probably cleaned up before taking the picture, or it was brand new ones... We all know how awful that war was because of these...: I LOVE old photos... This one is so representative of photo of of the begining of the past century... hmmm. Taken in 1917 I think, my great great grand parents and my great grand mother is the young girl, older child: 1939, my grand mother on the right, her sister on the left, some unknown person in the middle: My grand parents and my mother around 1952 in Tunis, Tunisia. They lived in Kairouan, Tunisia for a few years before moving to Reunion Island: Then they did move to Reunion Island, and this is taken in a little tiny village called Hellbourg in 1955. My grand father was a teacher, here with his class, and my mother running around in the shot:

John Edwards: I was wrong.

In a letter published in the Washington Post: washingtonpost.com The Right Way in Iraq By John Edwards Sunday, November 13, 2005; B07 I was wrong. Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda. It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price. The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth. While we can't change the past, we need to accept responsibility, because a key part of restoring America's moral leadership is acknowledging when we've made mistakes or been proven wrong -- and showing that we have the creativity and guts to make it right. The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war. George Bush won't accept responsibility for his mistakes. Along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, he has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace. Because of these failures, Iraq is a mess and has become a far greater threat than it ever was. It is now a haven for terrorists, and our presence there is draining the goodwill our country once enjoyed, diminishing our global standing. It has made fighting the global war against terrorist organizations more difficult, not less. The urgent question isn't how we got here but what we do now. We have to give our troops a way to end their mission honorably. That means leaving behind a success, not a failure. What is success? I don't think it is Iraq as a Jeffersonian democracy. I think it is an Iraq that is relatively stable, largely self-sufficient, comparatively open and free, and in control of its own destiny. A plan for success needs to focus on three interlocking objectives: reducing the American presence, building Iraq's capacity and getting other countries to meet their responsibilities to help. First, we need to remove the image of an imperialist America from the landscape of Iraq. American contractors who have taken unfair advantage of the turmoil in Iraq need to leave Iraq. If that means Halliburton subsidiary KBR, then KBR should go. Such departures, and the return of the work to Iraqi businesses, would be a real statement about our hopes for the new nation. We also need to show Iraq and the world that we will not stay there forever. We've reached the point where the large number of our troops in Iraq hurts, not helps, our goals. Therefore, early next year, after the Iraqi elections, when a new government has been created, we should begin redeployment of a significant number of troops out of Iraq. This should be the beginning of a gradual process to reduce our presence and change the shape of our military's deployment in Iraq. Most of these troops should come from National Guard or Reserve forces. That will still leave us with enough military capability, combined with better-trained Iraqis, to fight terrorists and continue to help the Iraqis develop a stable country. Second, this redeployment should work in concert with a more effective training program for Iraqi forces. We should implement a clear plan for training and hard deadlines for certain benchmarks to be met. To increase incentives, we should implement a schedule showing that, as we certify Iraqi troops as trained and equipped, a proportional number of U.S. troops will be withdrawn. Third, we must launch a serious diplomatic process that brings the world into this effort. We should bring Iraq's neighbors and our key European allies into a diplomatic process to get Iraq on its feet. The president needs to create a unified international front. Too many mistakes have already been made for this to be easy. Yet we must take these steps to succeed. The American people, the Iraqi people and -- most important -- our troops who have died or been injured there, and those who are fighting there today, deserve nothing less. America's leaders -- all of us -- need to accept the responsibility we each carry for how we got to this place. More than 2,000 Americans have lost their lives in this war, and more than 150,000 are fighting there today. They and their families deserve honesty from our country's leaders. And they also deserve a clear plan for a way out. The writer, a former senator from North Carolina, was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004.

Fanaticism

Here's an example of the fanaticism of some people. As many people, we were fascinated by the preview of the show called "trading spouses" on fox... Even though we usually don't watch fox... But this was way too good to miss. A Louisiana christian woman is sent to a "new age" family while the mom of this family is sent to Louisiana. Here's an extract I found on stereogum.com http://www.hedonistica.com/media.php?path=/videos/trading_spouses.wmv And on the same site, a band called Goes cube (their myspace page here) made a remix using this christian woman's beautiful voice! Click here for the post on stereogum, and don't forget to check out the mp3 of the remix! And do no take this personally if you are christian, I'm only mocking the stupidity of extremism, not making a generalization! As a matter of fact, I don't think Mother Theresa would have yelled that way and been so intolerant! But this is really funny!!!!

Recycled holiday cards

I found this link on treehugger.com: kidbean.com recycled cards

And to relieve the tension.....

This one's entitled "Chubby kitty" Yes, that always does it! Cute huh!?

Follow up on the thread from yesterday

Spikecandy, Please don't take my heated comments as being solely directed at you! Your comments were smart and from a very interested point of view which I truly appreciate!!! My replies were not completely directed AT you, and that is why I made it into a post instead of continuing on the comments section. Your comments have only STARTED a discussion, and my complaints were mainly directed at the american ignorance I encounter everyday whether it is direct or indirect. I completely understand that you are in Australia and that there must be its share of ignorance there too, just as anywhere, really. But please please please don't think I singled you out. I just merely started a "thread" of dicussion based on your initial comments not because it was offensive, but because it was sincere! I understand that your comments were written fast, and I apologize myself for being a little too sarcastic in writing, which as I'm not a writer might not come out that way in reading it! You, yourself have mentioned that you were not understood through what you wrote in this discussion, then as a person who says I should have not jumped at you (per your latest post on your blog), you can understand that what happened in our discussion was more similar than not. There is no animosity against you in any way. Again, I just wanted to start a discussion out in the open because it is an interesting one, and because for once there was a sincere intelligent person from another country than here making a comment on my blog! And I'm proud of it! I did not mean to seem like I was jumping at you, I was jumping at the all ignorants saying that the riots stem from racism, which is too fast and too convenient to say without really looking into it. But truly not jumping at you! Again, your comments just STARTED a discussion, and therefore, my train of thoughts made it to the ignorance of people here (mostly). Don't take that personally! And please, read the post again, if anything to see that I do add "american" a lot of the time!!! Then again, this is blog is mostly about my life as a musician, but somehow it has turned into a blog about my political ideals and principles as a french resident alien in the US. hahahaha Spikecandy, I hope you're ok, I really didn't mean to offend you, and I'm sure you can make out what was a reply to you and what was not. After all, if I said that you weren't very diplomatic in telling a french that it didn't matter if her culture disappeared, it wasn't very serious, it was intended to be read with a smirk, because I knew you certainly didn't mean that since your blog is mainly about that particular culture! I should have made a clear seperation between my "serious" comments and my more sarcastic replies to you. For that I apologize! See? I do read your blog!!!! :-} Thank you for continuing to discuss it though, I do appreciate your comments, you are a very articulate writer and I recommend your blog to everybody I can who is interested in that phase of french culture! spikecandy's web site Please accept my apologies, and I hope you feel better soon! Thanks, Jean for reading this as well!

Some comments about France...

Ok, not everybody agrees as to what the riots are about... But there is a general understanding that it's a mix of very complicated issues. It's not because "white" people don't accept muslims people (especially that the "whites" in this case could include Asians, North African Jews, Black people and many other people that make up the french population these days who are not muslims). The police ARE brutal, but the majority of the population wants to see integration of all cultures. It's just too easy for the media to blow it out as a scandalous event! It's also too easy for americans to point the finger at another country while the same problems are happening right at home. Very convenient I must say! From what I experienced when I lived there, it wasn't the arab culture I had a hard time with, I was more than happy to see my culture evolve and melt to become international. But a great part of the arab population does not want to integrate either. When I was a kid, the only bullies who were either attacking me or at least threatening me with multiple people in front of me, myself, and I, were arab kids. If I am made to look at it that way, it's the way it was. But yet my best friend was black, we hung out with a polish jewish girl, a Moroccan, and a very red haired alsacian, while I'm of mixed blood! And we weren't the only ones who weren't disturbed by our skin color differences! I know that it might sound very calumnious to say that, but I lived it that way. It was alway the more recent emigrants from Algeria who bullied us, and when I say bully, it's very light, because let me tell you, I was very happy to now martial arts at the time!!!! Everytime there is a wave of immigration from a certain group, the ones already "on location" fear them. Look at the wave of italian immigration in the states, everybody else thought they were bastards. It was the same with the irish, and all the other big waves. In the 60's the french had a wave of jewish north africans arrive. They had been living in north Africa for many many many generations, they had no roots in France. But they were kicked out when independance came, and sent to France. When they arrived, the people in France treated them like shit! As a matter of fact, a member of my family, who arrived in France from Algeria at 11 years old, came home one day to ask his mother what a "dirty jew" was. He did not know what a jew was, he spoke french and arabic. Not hebrew, not yiddish, arabic! he did not even know he was jewish! Did that prevent the jewish community to make their world thrive in France? no! They are integrated, and very much part of our culture! They didn't wait for french people to open their arms warmly for them to get in. They didn't wait for the governement to give them unemployement, allocations of every kind or social security, they worked until they were included in the culture just as any other french person. And yes, this sucked, it was an awful thing to have to go through, and an awful thing for french people to do, but please don't give me the Look-at-those-frenchies-collaborators-they-hate-the-muslims thing! Every country experienced that! So why is it that the Arab population feels so apart from the culture? I know many people from the older wave of immigration which was primarly from Morocco, and they are just fine and very much integrated, but because of younger generations of people who emigrated in the last 15 years, they are viewed as being awful. It's a very complex problem that I think many people put too easily on the count of racism. But let's not forget that racism these days is not a matter of slapping our slaves around in the cotton field, racism these days comes both ways! And for those suburbs "youth" rioting in Paris, I would love for them to come check out how it is in the suburbs of America where there is no social coverage and where even their medication cannot be fulfilled! Where your unemployement runs out and is not replaced by anything else, and where you cannot just be on disability and pay your rent too! It would be a very interesting experience to see them survive in this situation. Where if you are burnt by a car you put on fire yourself, you cannot go to the ER without any medical coverage, or see your doctor come to your house! And for the americans telling me that we should have seen it coming with our horrible colonization, please look in the mirror, and see that most of the American "territories" were acquired after the english and french had started experiencing the aftermath of their mistakes! So don't be so sure that you won't have trouble with YOUR colonies! ok, so there, I feel better! :-) I need to buy a punching bag! seriously! Sorry! It's hard for me to listen to bullshit all day about a country that hosts my culture, and very little sets me off. If it's not rioting in Paris and racism in France that I hear about, it's how we should be happy that the americans liberated us from the Nazis, and that we would speak german by now if it wasn't for them.. And everytime I mention the fact that one forgets their history lessons which mentioned, probably briefly since forgotten so easily, the fact that if the french hadn't been there in the revolution, american people would still be part of the commonwealth and paying with bills portraying the queen of England! But of course America has its share of jackasses, just as any country does! Somebody get me a punching bag!!!!!!!

Finally a mostly true view of Paris!!!!

Article link... Go there, comments are also interesting! The Problem with Frenchness Readers have asked me for comment about the riots in France that have now provoked emergency laws and a curfew. What I would rather comment on, however, is the myths that have governed many rightwing American comments on the tragic events. Actually, I can only think that the disturbances must produce a huge ice cream headache for the dittoheads. French of European heritage pitted against French of African and North African heritage? How could they ever pick a side? I should begin by saying how much these events sadden me and fill me with anguish. I grew up in part in France (7 years of my childhood in two different periods) and have long been in love with the place, and the people. We visited this past June for a magical week. And, of course, I've been to Morocco and Tunisia and Senegal, and so have a sense of the other side in all this; I rather like all those places, too. How sad, to see all this violence and rancor. I hope Paris and France more generally can get through these tough times and begin working on the underlying problems soon. At this time of a crisis in globalization in the wake of the Cold War, we need Paris to be a dynamic exemplar of problem-solving on this front. The French have determinedly avoided multiculturalism or affirmative action. They have insisted that everyone is French together and on a "color-blind" set of policies. "Color-blind" policies based on "merit" always seem to benefit some groups more than others, despite a rhetoric of equality and achievement. In order to resolve the problems they face, the French will have to come to terms with the multi-cultural character of contemporary society. And they will have to find ways of actively sharing jobs with minority populations, who often suffer from an unemployment rate as high as 40 percent (i.e. Iraq). Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun-Times commits most of the gross errors, factual and ethical, that characterize the discourse of the Right in the US on such matters. For instance, Steyn complains that the rioters have been referred to as "French youths." ''French youths,'' huh? You mean Pierre and Jacques and Marcel and Alphonse? Granted that most of the "youths" are technically citizens of the French Republic, it doesn't take much time in les banlieus of Paris to discover that the rioters do not think of their primary identity as ''French'': They're young men from North Africa growing ever more estranged from the broader community with each passing year and wedded ever more intensely to an assertive Muslim identity more implacable than anything you're likely to find in the Middle East. After four somnolent years, it turns out finally that there really is an explosive ''Arab street,'' but it's in Clichy-sous-Bois. This paragraph is the biggest load of manure to hit the print media since Michael Brown (later of FEMA) and his Arabian Horse Society were profiled in Arabian Horse Times. The French youth who are burning automobiles are as French as Jennifer Lopez and Christopher Walken are American. Perhaps the Steyns came before the Revolutionary War, but a very large number of us have not. The US brings 10 million immigrants every decade and one in 10 Americans is now foreign-born. Their children, born and bred here, have never known another home. All US citizens are Americans, including the present governor of California. "The immigrant" is always a political category. Proud Californio families (think "Zorro") who can trace themselves back to the 18th century Spanish empire in California are often coded as "Mexican immigrants" by "white" Californians whose parents were Okies. A lot of the persons living in the urban outer cities (a better translation of cite than "suburb") are from subsaharan Africa. And there are lots of Eastern European immigrants. The riots were sparked by the deaths of African youths, not Muslims. Singling out the persons of Muslim heritage is just a form of bigotry. Moreover, French youth of European heritage rioted quite extensively in 1968. As they had in 1789. Rioting in the streets is not a foreign custom. It has a French genealogy and context. The young people from North African societies such as Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are mostly only nominal Muslims. They frequently do not speak much Arabic, and don't have "proper" French, either. They frequently do not know much about Islam and most of them certainly don't practice it-- much less being more virulent about it than Middle Easterners. Aware of their in-between-ness, young persons of North African heritage in France developed a distinctive identity. They took the word Arabe and scrambled it to produce Beur (which sounds in French like the word for "butter"). Beur culture can be compared a bit to hip-hop as a form of urban expression of marginality and self-assertion in a racist society. It is mostly secular. Another thing that is wrong with Steyn's execrable paragraph is that it assumes an echt "Frenchness" that is startling in a post-Holocaust thinker. There are no pure "nations" folks. I mean, first of all, what is now France had a lot of different populations in it even in the 18th century-- Bretons (speakers of a Celtic language related to Welsh and Gaelic), Basques, Alsatians (German speakers), Provencale people in the south, Jews, etc., etc. "Multi-culturalism" is not something new in Europe. What was new was the Romantic nationalist conviction that there are "pure" "nations" based on "blood." It was among the more monstrous mistakes in history. Of course if, according to this essentially racist way of thinking, there are "pure" nations that have Gypsies, Jews and others living among them, then the others might have to be "cleansed" to restore the "purity." Yet another problem: France has for some time been a capitalist country with a relatively strong economy. Such economies attract workers. There have been massive labor immigration flows into France all along. In the early 20th century Poles came to work in the coal mines, and then more came in the inter-war period. By the beginning of the Great Depression, there were half a million Polish immigrants in France. Their numbers declined slightly in the next few years. There were even more Italians. There isn't anything peculiar about having large numbers of immigrants who came for work. And, few in France in the early 20th century thought that Poles were susceptible of integration into French society. Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, who has made himself unpopular by exacerbating tensions with intemperate language, is the son of immigrants (I guess he does not count as "French" according to Steyn's criteria.) Steyn wants to create a 1300-year struggle between Catholic France and the Muslims going back to Tours. This way of thinking is downright silly. France in the 19th century was a notorious ally of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, and fought alongside Muslims against the Christian Russians in the Crimean War. Among contemporary French, 40 percent do not even believe in God, and less than 20 percent go to mass at all regularly. Many of the French of non-European heritage are also not religious. The French repaid the compliment of Tours by conquering much of the Middle East. Bonaparte aggressively and viciously invaded Egypt in 1798, but couldn't hold on there. But in 1830 the French invaded Algeria and incorporated it into France. Algeria was "French soil." They reduced the Algerian population (which they brutalized and exploited) to marginal people under the colonial thumb. The French government of Algeria allowed hundreds of thousands to perish of famine in the 1870s. After World War II, given low French birth rates and a dynamic capitalist economy, the French began importing Algerian menial labor. The resulting Beurs are no more incapable of "integrating" into France than the Poles or Jews were. So it wasn't the Algerians who came and got France. France had come and gotten the Algerians, beginning with Charles X and then the July Monarchy. They settled a million rather rowdy French, Italians and Maltese in Algeria. These persons rioted a lot in the early 1960s as it became apparent that Algeria would get its independence (1962). In fact, European settler colonists or "immigrants" have caused far more trouble in the Middle East than vice versa. The kind of riots we are seeing in France also have occurred in US cities (they sent Detroit into a tailspin from 1967). They are always produced by racial segregation, racist discrimination, spectacular unemployment, and lack of access to the mainstream economy. The problems were broached by award-winning French author Tahar Ben Jalloun in his French Hospitality decades ago. (Americans who code themselves as "white" are often surprised to discover that "white people" created the inner cities here by zoning them for settlement by racial "minorities," excluding the minorities from the nicer parts of the cities and from suburbs. As late as the 1960s, many European-Americans were willing to sign a "covenant" not to sell their houses to an African-American, Chinese-American or a Jewish American. In fact, in the US, the suburbs were built, most often with de facto government subsidies in the form of highways and other perquisites, as an explicit means of racial segregation. Spatial segregation protected "white" businesses from competition from minority entrepreneurs, who couldn't open shops outside their ghettos. In France, government inputs were used to create "outer cities," but many of the same forces were at work.) The French do not have Jim Crow laws, but de facto residential segregation is a widespread and intractable problem. The problem is economic and having to do with economic and residential exclusionism, not with an "unassimilable" "immigrant" minority. (The French authorites deported a lot of Poles in the 1930s for making trouble by trying to unionize and strike, on the grounds that they were an unassimilable Slavic minority.) On the other hand, would it be possible for the French Muslim youth to be pushed toward religious extremism if the French government does not address the underlying problems. Sure. That was what I was alluding to in my posting last week. The solution? Recognizing that "Frenchness" is not monochrome, that France is a tapestry of cultures and always has been, and that sometimes some threads of the tapestry need some extra attention if it is not to fray and come apart. posted by Juan @ 11/09/2005 06:30:00 AM

Is Paris burning?

"Is Paris Burning ? Let's put it straight, Parisist will not lie to you about what's happening here: there are riots. But not in Paris. Even if a few car were burned down this week-end in the3rd and 17th district, theses acts by themselves cannot be designated as riots. However, if you're planning a trip to Paris and land in the Charles de Gaulle Airport, take US Embassy's word for it: play it safe and avoid the subway (RER B) to get into town. Parisist would rather advise you to take a cab or use special airport buses (RoissyBus or AirFrance, approx 14 euros round trip). Once you're in Paris, you're safe, the city is very quiet. The riots are concentrated in some very limited areas of the suburbs. So, don't be scared: you can still come and enjoy Paris. November is a very romantic month (what else would you expect anyway) and Parisist feels that cancelling this sweet trip of yours for some (slightly over-exagerated) media coverage really can't be the best idea. Parisist will keep you posted as the events unfold ..." Posted on Parisist My take on it? As a french person who actually live there and who has been threatened a few times by arab kids while living there? hmmmm.... It's too easy for americans to denounce the "racism" of us frenchies... I've heard that, and I highly resent it! Especially coming from a place like the US where black people still don't have equal rights with white people! Where it is rare to see "mixed marriages" and where it takes a tragedy like Katrina to face the facts of the relation between class and color of skin! First of all, please don't make a comment like this about a country you have either never set foot in or maybe have spent a wonderful week being romantic in Paris drinking champagne under the eiffel tower! You MIGHT have experienced a little of the life there if you got stuck in the train station because the workers were on strike! I'll give you that... Second of all, IF one is to spend time there, then he/she will realize that the situation is very different from what is being protrayed on TV (the above article showing how the media is blowing it out of proportion... probably because the war in Iraq or Cheney problems are not that fashionably spectacular in their eyes!). Yes there are suburbs that are poorer than the city itself, isn't it the case here as well as in most "western civilized" countries? Yes there are problems in these suburbs. Oh my goodness, sounds familiar!! Then we have to elaborate and explain that there are a lot of white people and a lot of jews who are being attacked by a minority of arab people in these same suburbs (like the blowing up of synagogues!!). The problem is slightly more complex than one might think not having lived there for any extended period of time! How dare some people talk to me about how my country is a racist one for having poor suburbs filled with black and arab people while the US is invading a country on nothing but lunacy from an old junky cowboy "aristocrat" who just so happen to benefit from their precious black gold! Oh, and no I'm not proud of our government there either! It seems to be a generalized problem to be governed by right wing fools! And I sure hope that the left wing of France will take over in the next elections (sadly I'm pessimistic)... In a lot of ways the similarities are stiking between our two countries. But I wouldn't go too far in this comparison because for one the people in the french government might be right wing elitist upper crust snakes, but at least they are not of the scripted bloated cretinous exultant cocky desperado kind! And for second, what I see in these events is the ability of the french people to rise when they are fed up with a situation... Ok there are better ways to demand something from the government, but as one well knows from here... Maybe not... The only other problem I see is that there is a lot of control from major countries on "little" people in the suburbs of France, Belgium, Germany and other european countries where there a lot of immigrants. Some people might see it as a new form of terrorism... But that's another subject!

Another interesting Cheney related article.

Link to the article on truthout.org

Composing = Torture!

So I'm really close to finishing this next album that I will most likely call "Tarradiddle". I don't like it that much... It's such a torture to compose these pieces. Some came sooo easily, like "Less Chess", and "Odd Logic", but most of the others are such a process of stripping every tiny bit of neurons, emotive receptors and tissue I have in my poor little brain. Everytime! It's such a therapy session with this "composing" thing. It always has to be a fight with myself, trying to break my record at challenging my right side so my left side can sleep a little. When one of the sides is asleep I really wonder what it is that comes out. Is this whole album just the most concrete form of my subconscious? Am I really THAT creepy? Or is it a healthy thing, all of it out, so I don't have to slam someone in the face? SOMEBODY TAKE ME IN!!!!!!! I started playing on the guitar the other day and found this cool chord progression I liked. Being that I can't play the guitar to save my cat's life, it went really fast to recording the main theme and working around it. What I had in mind was more like a song structure. What came out was more like the symbol of the frustration in not being able to write the god damn song! It sounds like a car being driven by a pimpled pre-teenager who still smells like soiled diapers... Foot on the gas, then really abruptly brakes. And it goes on and on and on like that. I guess technically it's exactly how I feel. Probably all the time! I'm nauseaus all the time... So yes, I will put it out, because I don't believe that I should spread its mold on my hard drive, and also because every musician has put out several crappy albums at one point or another, so I'm entitled! But I feel disappointed, it took me so long to throw up this bile. How long will it take me to put out a good one then? My mom says it's avant garde and that people don't understand it YET. YET? One more thing I can't do! I have not planned to be a musician since I was 3 so that people could NOT understand my music YET today! I wanted to be a recognized musician in MY time, fuck the future! I'm not asking to be Britney Spears here! I just want to make money doing this so I can keep doing it all my life! That's all! Nothing more, no riches needed, no chihuahua either! Just my Mike and a computer with an internet connection (oh, and a pot of Nutella, please?)! "Here, take my music, put it in your film if you want, give me a little check and I can raise my kids in the middle of Papua New Guinea and leave everybody alone!" On the positive side, this next album IS different from what I usually do. Ok there are the usual ambient pieces that I am good at making, but a few of the other pieces are very beat oriented which is rather strange behavior for me... Hopefully it's only a start and I'll be able to do it and actually make the music I'd like to make (ie. I don't know what really). Darn classical background. All I can make are those stupid long drones of eerie ghostly drawned voices in the key of gloom! Why can't I just compose a simple song that everyone would agree on? No, I have to compose something that people need to twitch to because it's "not what they expected"... GGRRRR. I suck! PS: My music and I: Why do I never know which one is which? sabolabSeverineSeverine Baronambientmusicelectroniccompositioncomposing

Interesting.... Althought we all know!!!

link to the following AFP article Washington Post article following the AFP one AFP: Cheney's staff backed policies that led to prisoner abuse: ex official Thu Nov 3, 1:22 PM ET US Vice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for directives which led to US soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former top State Department official charged. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff. "The Secretary of Defense under cover of the Vice President's office ... regardless of the President having put out this memo ... they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen," Wilkerson said. He claimed the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the US military to abide by the Geneva Conventions against torture. "There was a visible audit trail from the Vice President's office through the Secretary of Defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detainees, Wilkerson said. The directives were "in carefully couched terms", Wilkerson conceded, but said they had the effect of loosening the reins on US troops, leading to many cases of prisoner abuse, including at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, that were contrary to the Geneva Conventions. "If you are a military man, you know that you just don't do these sorts of things" because troops will take advantage, or feel so pressured to obtain information that "they have to do what they have to do to get it," Wilkerson said. He said that Powell had assigned him to investigate the matter after stories emerged in the media about US troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both men had formerly served in the US military. Wilkerson also called David Addington, the vice president's lawyer, "a staunch advocate of allowing the president in his capacity as commander-in-chief to deviate from the Geneva Conventions." On Monday, Cheney promoted Addington to his chief of staff to replace I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who has been indicted over the unmasking of a CIA agent. Wilkerson also told National Public Radio that Cheney's office ran an "alternate national security staff" that spied on and undermined the president's formal National Security Council. He said National Security Council staff stopped sending emails when they found out Cheney's staffers were reading their messages. He said he believed that Cheney's staff prevented Bush from seeing a National Security Council memo arguing strongly that the US needed far more troops for the March 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. Wilkerson also said that former CIA chief George Tenet was not "possessed of the intestinal fortitude" to inform Cheney's office of key weaknesses in the government's argument that Saddam Hussein had or was seeking weapons of mass destruction. That argument was central to the Bush administration's justifications for the Iraq war. Wilkerson has also said recently that Cheney and Rumsfeld operated a "cabal" that hijacked US foreign and military policy.

What's happened since Bush's reelection

Think progress published this article about what's happened since Bush's reelection......... It's the classic list that goes on and on. We've been seeing that kind of list since he was elected in the first place. But I do believe it's right to keep publishing such lists. We tend to forget very easily in this country, so at least these refresh our dear memory!