Douze Lunes
29 mars 2003
Photo num�rique
A lire: Top Ten Digital Photography Tips, quelques bons trucs pour am�liorer les photos de ceux qui pratiquent la photographie num�rique.
Nouveau "Whatever"
John Scalzi a chang� de format: maintenant son excellent "whatever" est un weblog fonctionnant sous Movable Type.
Small news
10 things we didn't know this time last week - 10 choses qu'on ne savait pas � ce moment la semaine derni�re (BBC), parmi elles: Ken Livingstone, le maire de Londres, se fait de petits aide-m�moires sur la paume des mains; le langage des signes Britannique a des accents r�gionaux, l'�tat Indien du Bihar envisage de cr�er un minist�re pour s'occupper du probl�me des moustiques..
28 mars 2003
Zimbabwe
La grande romanci�re Britannique Doris Lessing conna�t bien le Zimbabwe. Elle est n�e en Iran en 1919, quand elle eut cinq ans sa famille �migra en Rhod�sie du Sud (l'ancien nom du Zimbabwe). Elle dut s'exiler en Angleterre en 1949. Oppos�e au gouvernement d'apartheid, elle ne put retourner qu'en 1982 au Zimbabwe. Elle �crivit: "African Laughter", relatant ses nombreux voyages l� bas. Aujourd'hui elle publie dans la "New York Review of Books" un r�quisitoire contre Robert Mugabe.
"You have the jewel of Africa in your hands," said President Samora Machel of Mozambique and President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania to Robert Mugabe, at the moment of independence, in 1980. "Now look after it."
Twenty-three years later, the "jewel" is ruined, dishonored, disgraced.
Southern Rhodesia had fine and functioning railways, good roads; its towns were policed and clean. It could grow anything, tropical fruit like pineapples, mangoes, bananas, plantains, pawpaws, passion fruit, temperate fruits like apples, peaches, plums. The staple food, maize, grew like a weed and fed surrounding countries as well. Peanuts, sunflowers, cotton, the millets and small grains that used to be staple foods before maize, flourished. Minerals: gold, chromium, asbestos, platinum, and rich coalfields. The dammed Zambezi River created the Kariba Lake, which fed electricity north and south. A paradise, and not only for the whites. The blacks did well, too, at least physically. Not politically: it was a police state and a harsh one. When the blacks rebelled and won their war in 1979 they looked forward to a plenty and competence that existed nowhere else in Africa, not even in South Africa, which was bedeviled by its many mutually hostile tribes and its vast shantytowns. But paradise has to have a superstructure, an infrastructure, and by now it is going, going� almost gone.
One man is associated with the calamity, Robert Mugabe. For a while I wondered if the word "tragedy" could be applied here, greatness brought low, but Mugabe, despite his early reputation, was never great; he was always a frightened little man. There is a tragedy, all right, but it is Zimbabwe's. Lire...
Humour anglais
Trouv� sur le blog de William Gibson:
HEARD ON SKY NEWS
"Umm Qasr is a town similar to Southampton", UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons yesterday. "He's either never been to Southampton, or he's never been to Umm Qasr", said one British soldier, informed of this while on patrol in Umm Qasr. Another added: "There's no beer, no prostitutes, and people are shooting at us. It's more like Portsmouth."
Message de service
C'est calme sur ce blog ces derniers temps. Pourtant l'actualit� est charg�e, surcharg�e m�me.
J'ai �t� occup� ailleurs.
De toutes fa�ons je n'ai rien � dire sur le d�roulement de la guerre, je n'ai aucune comp�tence dans le domaine militaire, aucune connaissance non plus. Pas de contacts bien plac�s. Je ne suis pas pacifiste, pas belliqueux non plus. Je n'ai pas beaucoup de sympathie pour Michael Moore, pour George W. Bush non plus, sachant quel tyran est Saddam, je ne peux que souhaiter sa chute, toutefois le sort des populations Irakiennes me rempli d'effroi, l'imprudence du d�clenchement de cette guerre m'inqui�te. Bref, le monde va mal (je dis �a au cas o� vous ne vous en seriez pas rendu compte!). Pour tout dire la guerre me d�prime et la fa�on dont en rendent compte les m�dia m'irrite, particuli�rement la t�l�vision.
Alors on va essayer de "bloguer" sur autre chose d�s qu'on aura deux minutes. Patience.
23 mars 2003
T.C. Boyle
Interview T.C. Boyle - Robert Birnbaum interview Thomas Corghessian Boyle pour Identity Theory, � l'occasion de la publication de son nouveau roman Drop City.
I think writing and reading are unique in this�in all of human culture�but particularly in this electronic culture, this busy culture, you can do it on your own. You can be an independent agent. You can be a punk. You can be a crank and a crazy and you can do it and you can find an audience for it. On the other hand the audience for serious fiction dwindles while the number of writers increases. I hope that there will be some point at which that legion of writers�some of which I am helping to push in to the world�will be become the readers of the future. That is probably the best end of this trend. Not every one will be a writer even if they take creative writing, but at least they will understand it and appreciate it.
22 mars 2003
Le th�atre des op�rations ( I )
R�sultat d'un peu de butinage en ce d�but d'apr�s midi de samedi:
- On peut garder un oeil sur le blog de Sean Paul Kelley The Agonist qui rassemble et synth�tise de nombreux m�dia.
- Int�ressant portrait de Tony Blair dans Le Monde.
- En Fran�ais, l'excellent article de Timothy Garton Ash, dont je parlais l'autre jour: L'anti-europ�anisme en Am�rique.
- Couverture du conflit Irakien: une liste des sites de journalistes sur le terrain.
- CNN aurait demand� � son journaliste, auteur de Kevin Site, de fermer son blog pour le moment.
- Excellent post de Patrick Nielsen Hayden intitul� Rhetoric of wars, compare and contrast.
- Par Noos (mon ISP), il m'est impossible d'acc�der au blog Iraquien Where is Raed. Pourquoi?
- Le blog des correspondants de la BBC sur les divers terrains est vraiment bien.
20 mars 2003
Preacher & Blogger
Real Live Preacher Weblog
I don�t want to pray, but I made a commitment to do so. This is the time when I must exercise my faith in the midst of crushing doubt.
So I will pray. I will. But I don�t know what to say.
Perhaps this is the time to listen.
Apaiser les maux de l'�me
Anxi�t�, stress, d�pression: gu�rir sans m�dicaments
A l'int�rieur du cerveau se trouve un cerveau �motionnel, avec une architecture singuli�re et une organisation cellulaire diff�rente du reste du n�ocortex, la partie la plus �volu�e du cerveau, si�ge du langage et de la pens�e. Or le cerveau �motionnel fonctionne souvent ind�pendamment du n�ocortex: on ne peut pas commander � une �motion d'augmenter, de la m�me mani�re qu'on ne peut commander � son esprit de parler ou de se taire.
Le cerveau �motionnel contr�le tout ce qui r�git le bien-�tre psychologique et une grande partie de la physiologie du corps: le fonctionnement du c�ur, la tension art�rielle, les hormones, le syst�me digestif et m�me le syst�me immunitaire.
Les d�sordres �motionnels sont la cons�quence de dysfonctionnements de ce cerveau �motionnel. Souvent, ils ont pour origine des exp�riences douloureuses sans rapport avec le pr�sent, mais imprim�es de fa�on ind�l�bile dans ce cerveau �motionnel. �Ce sont ces exp�riences, expose David Servan-Schreiber, qui continuent souvent de contr�ler notre comportement, parfois des dizaines d'ann�es plus tard. La principale t�che du psychoth�rapeute est de �reprogrammer� le cerveau �motionnel afin qu'il soit adapt� au pr�sent, au lieu de continuer de r�agir � des situations du pass�. Il est souvent plus efficace d'utiliser des m�thodes qui passent par le corps et influent directement sur le cerveau �motionnel, peu perm�able � la raison.�
Lire tout...
15 mars 2003
JIC
JIC: Journal Intime Collectif
C'est un ensemble de r�gles du jeu qui permet � toutes les personnes habitant une m�me ville, de tous �ges, de toutes cat�gories sociales, de se rencontrer et de se raconter des histoires dans une atmosph�re conviviale et constructive.
Selon ces r�gles, chacun �crit des textes � partir de l'observation de sc�nes ou de paysages urbains.
Les r�gles du jeu, les textes du JIC en ligne.
Scalzi on bathroom reading
John Scalzi's Whatever Column: 'Book On Stupidity'
Because I do a lot of writing for the Bathroom Reader folks, I've had a couple of people crack wise about the fact I'm writing for people who are reading my words simultaneous to defecating. And I suppose I do, but I don't really worry much about that. For one thing, taking a dump doesn't engage one's mind, so why not do something? We're all so hot about multi-tasking; well, here's your chance. You can learn a lot while taking a dump, and while perhaps you don't want to publicize the fact that that's where you've received your broad-based education (I don't suspect there will ever be a book called Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned While Pinching a Loaf), it doesn't mean you can't do it.I'm so french... This kind of stuff makes me laugh. Sorry.
Real War Blog
Kevin Sites Blog est le blog d'un correspondant de CNN sur le terrain de la prochaine guerre du Golfe 2. A suivre.
13 mars 2003
Etonnant, non?
Washington et Londres l�chent du lest:
"Nous discutons toujours avec les membres du Conseil pour voir ce qui est possible quant � une unit� autour d'une position qui n'engendrerait pas un veto", a d�clar� Colin Powell.Yahoo Actualit�s 13 Mars 19h31
12 mars 2003
Raymond Aron
France Culture publie sur le web un extraordinaire dossier consacr� � Raymond Aron philosophe, sociologue et politologue. Il y a des documents sonores passionnants, une tr�s compl�te bibliographie et un choix de liens.
France Culture - Dossier Raymond Aron
Dad is with us
Bush Sr warning over unilateral action
THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by international unity.
Drawing on his own experiences before and after the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr said that the brief flowering of hope for Arab-Israeli relations a decade ago would never have happened if America had ignored the will of the United Nations.
He also urged the President to resist his tendency to bear grudges, advising his son to bridge the rift between the United States, France and Germany.
�You�ve got to reach out to the other person. You�ve got to convince them that long-term friendship should trump short-term adversity,� he said.
C'est dans le Times of London. Si c'est vrai c'est important car le p�re et le fils ont des relations tr�s �troites.
11 mars 2003
Saying No to War
Saying No to War - Le New York Times a franchi le rubicon et se d�clare contre la guerre sans soutien de l'ONU, adh�rant ainsi, ni plus ni moins, � la position de la France! Ca doit faire grincer des dents dans la war-blogosph�re.
Within days, barring a diplomatic breakthrough, President Bush will decide whether to send American troops into Iraq in the face of United Nations opposition. We believe there is a better option involving long-running, stepped-up weapons inspections. But like everyone else in America, we feel the window closing. If it comes down to a question of yes or no to invasion without broad international support, our answer is no.
Blogs d'or
Douze Lunes est nomin� (ou s�lectionn�) au Blog d'or, dans la cat�gorie Meilleur Blog d'Actualit�.
Merci, c'est tr�s gentil. Je suis touch�.
Maintenant vous avez jusqu'au 31 mars pour vvoter.
09 mars 2003
Migration forc�e
China to move seven million in massive anti-poverty scheme
China plans to physically move seven million people out of poverty in one of the most massive government-engineered human migrations in history.
A Newt's review
Vous rappellez-vous de Newt Gingrich? Ennemi jur� des Clinton et pr�sident de la chambre des repr�sentants pendant toutes les affaires de la pr�sidence Clinton, architecte de la victoire R�publicaine de 94 avec son "Contract with America". Retir� de la politique depuis quelques ann�es, Gingrich s'amuse � �crire des compte-rendus de livres sur Amazon US. Il en a fait, � ce jour, 98! Il ne commente que les livres qu'il aime, et ses go�ts sont, humm... un peu � droite!
Anti-europ�anisme
Je crois que pas mal de blogueurs ont d�j� signal� cet article, mais je ne l'ai lu qu'aujourd'hui. C'est un excellent article d'un britanique Timothy Garton Ash, paru dans la "New York Review of Books", et �a s'appelle: Anti-Europeanism in America. Si ce n'est encore fait foncez le lire. Un petit extrait:
Anti-Europeanism is not symmetrical with anti-Americanism. The emotional leitmotifs of anti-Americanism are resentment mingled with envy; those of anti-Europeanism are irritation mixed with contempt. Anti-Americanism is a real obsession for entire countries�notably for France, as Jean-Fran�ois Revel has recently argued. Anti-Europeanism is very far from being an American obsession. In fact, the predominant American popular attitude toward Europe is probably mildly benign indifference, mixed with impressive ignorance. I traveled around Kansas for two days asking people I met: "If I say 'Europe' what do you think of?" Many reacted with a long, stunned silence, sometimes punctuated by giggles. Then they said things like "Well, I guess they don't have much huntin' down there" (Vernon Masqua, a carpenter in McLouth); "Well, it's a long way from home" (Richard Souza, whose parents came from France and Portugal); or, after a very long pause for thought, "Well, it's quite a ways across the pond" (Jack Weishaar, an elderly farmer of German descent). If you said "America" to a farmer or carpenter in even the remotest village of Andalusia or Ruthenia, he would, you may be sure, have a whole lot more to say on the subject.
08 mars 2003
Columbia FAQ
STS-107 "Columbia" Loss FAQ - Enorme FAQ sur la catastrophe de Columbia, tr�s complet, dommage que le texte soit en blanc sur fond noir!
Le front diplomatique
Pilar RAHOLA, ex-d�put�e de la Gauche r�publicaine espagnole : "Chirac est un pharisien" (Proche-Orient Info, via Mangeclous)
Il est curieux de constater que l'Europe n'est critique qu'envers les contradictions de ses d�mocraties, tandis qu'elle s'�prend facilement de redoutables dictatures. Sans doute, est-ce parce qu'elle ne mobilise sa conscience que lorsqu'il y a une �toile de David ou un drapeau am�ricain sur un char.
Le veto fran�ais se pr�cise � l'ONU (Lib�)
L'usage du veto contre une r�solution qui, aux yeux de Washington, touche � la s�curit� nationale, aurait un impact consid�rable sur les relations internationales, comparable � une bombe atomique diplomatique.
Pierre Lellouche : Un jeu parfaitement st�rile (Le Figaro)
La v�rit� est que la tornade franco-am�ricaine, certes fascinante sur le plan intellectuel, est parfaitement st�rile. Elle satisfait aux passions, aux jeux de politique int�rieure de part et d'autre, mais nullement aux d�fis qui attendent le monde dans les ann�es et les d�cennies � venir.
Kouchner s�me le d�sordre au PS (Le Point)
Dimanche dernier sur RTL, l'ancien ministre Bernard Kouchner a surpris ses camarades socialistes en critiquant s�v�rement la diplomatie fran�aise, pourtant salu�e par le pr�sident du groupe PS � l'Assembl�e, Jean-Marc Ayrault, et le patron du PS, Fran�ois Hollande : � On a brandi le veto � d'une fa�on qui n'�tait pas � franchement n�cessaire �, accuse Kouchner, et on a d�velopp� une sorte de � bras de fer tr�s dommageable pour la n�gociation �. Pour lui, � le renversement de Saddam Hussein est le but prioritaire �. Il rejoint ainsi la position d'Andr� Glucksmann, Marek Halter et Romain Goupil, qui pr�f�rent la guerre � Saddam Hussein
De Paris � la lune
Il faut lire le livre d'Adam Gopnik: "De Paris � la Lune" (Paris To The Moon). Portrait de Paris et des Parisiens mais aussi des Fran�ais par un journaliste du New Yorker.
Compte-rendu dans L'Express:
L'esprit fran�ais se r�sume, selon Gopnik, � un d�sespoir intelligent parsem� de gaiet� et de charme. Cet homme a bien raison de ne pas �tre tendre avec un pays o� il est �impossible de rien faire sans avoir un dossier � son nom� et o� la retraite est devenue la finalit� de la vie alors qu'elle est consid�r�e ailleurs comme l'antichambre de la mort. Il y a de la lucidit� dans ce regard, mais nulle d�ception, nul jugement. Adam Gopnik a r�ussi le plus dur: ajuster le pays que l'on regarde au pays que l'on a r�v�.
05 mars 2003
Images of Native Americans
Images of Native Americans - Exhibition at the Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California, USA.
"The panorama of images selected includes illustrations from rare books, pamphlets, journals, pulp magazines, newspapers, and ephemera in addition to selections of original photographs, including stereographs, lantern slides, and cyanotypes.
The diverse scholarly treasures represented in this exhibition include materials that reflect European interpretations of Native Americans, scientific and anthropological research, United States military surveys, images of popular culture, literary and political observations, and artistic representations."
(via Travelers Diagram)
Des voix dissidentes
Ces Fran�ais qui choisissent l�Am�rique (Nouvel Obs')
Saddam doit partir, de gr� ou de force ! par Pascal Bruckner, Andr� Glucksmann et Romain Goupil (Le Monde)
Bernard Kouchner : "La France est dans l'impasse" (Grand Jury, LCI - RTL - Le Monde)
France's five cardinal sins over Iraq - Living on a cloud, by Andr� Glucksmann (IHT), et traduction de ce texte dans Proche Orient Info.
02 mars 2003
Six Feet Under
La troisi�me saison de Six Feet Under d�marre ce soir aux Etats Unis.
Dead-On Drama (Wash. Post)
A more grounded 'Six Feet Under' (USA Today)
Mother Superior - Portrait de Frances Conroy (NBC)
A Faster Pace for Burial Rites (NYT)
Under and Out (Slate)
The king of blues
Spinning Blues Into Gold, the Rough Way - Profile of B.B. King, bluesman extraordinaire, at 77.
Guitarists like Mr. Clapton, Mike Bloomfield, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Johnny Winter, Billy Gibbons and Stevie Ray Vaughan were powerfully influenced by Mr. King. Mr. Vaughan famously told a radio interviewer in the late 1980's that after hearing Mr. King play one note, "I almost died."
What defines Mr. King's style is the interplay of his strong voice and guitar as extensions of each other. He sings and plays and sings again. His guitar and voice, as Mr. King once said, come "from different parts of my soul." He added that he wanted his guitar to "sound human."
"By bending the strings, by trilling my hand � and I have big, fat hands � I could achieve something that approximated a vocal vibrato," Mr. King said in his 1996 autobiography, "Blues All Around Me," written with David Ritz. He added: "I could sustain a note. I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions."
First in his class
Meet Mr. Credibility - Profile of ex-general Wesley Clark as future Democratic presidential candidate.
Think Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) looks good because he fought in a war? Well, check Clark out. Clark, now 58, fought in Vietnam, too, of course, but that was just his stretching routine. He won a war. He was NATO commander during the Kosovo operation. Granted, this may not be the military equivalent of beating back Adolf Hitler. But it arguably is something of a moral equivalent in that it led to the downfall of a Hitler manqu� in the person of Slobodan Milosevic. It was, however sliced, a successful, multilateral mission that largely achieved its objectives, both military and political. And the Kosovo campaign was merely the most recent in a long line of Clark's feats. After graduating from high school in Little Rock, Ark., in 1962, he went to West Point, where he finished first in his class; after that, to Oxford University, where he earned a master's degree in philosophy, politics and economics as a Rhodes Scholar (an Arkansas Rhodes Scholar, eh?); to Vietnam in the late 1960s; thence up the ladder, all the way to NATO command, which Bill Clinton bestowed on him in 1997. Although both from Arkansas, Clinton and Clark first met, Clark says, at a 1965 student leadership conference while both were in college. Since then, Clark has won the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, a Silver Star, a Purple Heart, and more accolades and decorations than Secretariat.
.../...
Clark has emerged as a ferocious critic of the Bush administration's national-security policy. To Clark, the administration has not made even a version of a case against Iraq. Iran and North Korea are obviously bigger and more immediate threats. And the administration's cowboy unilateralism, he says, goes against everything the United States is supposed to represent to the world. "After 9-11, who are we?" he asked me. "Are we going to be an angry, beleaguered giant swatting out at selected nations with our sword of vengeance? Are we going to be Daddy Warbucks handing out money? What are we?"
Dans les news
Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war - Un M�mo r�v�le que l'administration am�ricaine surveille intensivement les d�l�gations du Conseil de S�curit� qui sont encore ind�cises. Il fallait s'y attendre mais �a fait d�sordre.
Lire le m�mo.
Suspected 9/11 Mastermind Handed to U.S. - Une belle prise, apparement.
Victoire d'Alinghi
Alinghi, le d�fi Suisse, gagne la coupe de l'America, 5 � 0 contre le tenant du titre Team New Zealand. Excellent! C'est la premi�re fois qu'un pays d'Europe ram�ne la coupe (apr�s l'Australie et la Nouvelle Z�lande et, bien s�r, les USA).
La prochaine coupe aura lieu en Europe donc, on parle de Marseille...
L'�quipage de 31 personnes du d�fi Suisse �tait vraiment international avec huit Suisses, huit N�o-Z�landais, trois Fran�ais, deux Canadiens et deux Am�ricains, deux Australiens, deux N�erlandais, un Danois, un Allemand, un Sud-Africain et un Italien.
01 mars 2003
California Dreaming
California Dreaming
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.
California dreaming
On such a winter's day
Stopped into a church
I passed along the way
Well I got down on my knees
And I pretend to pray
You know the preacher like the cold
He knows I'm gonna stay
California dreaming
On such a winter's day
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day
If I didn't tell her
I could leave today
California dreaming
On such a winter's day
California dreaming
On such a winter's day
On such a winter's day
The Mamas & Papas
Ecoutez, le Mp3 est l�. J'aurai pu inclure cette chanson dans mon top 50, elle me trotte dans la t�te.
Plus que 21 jours avant le printemps! Ouf, j'aurai bient�t n�goci� une nouvelle saison hivernale... Je d�teste l'hiver!
RSS
Je ne suis pas un technicien tr�s dou�. J'ai essay�, parce que Blogger Pro le permettait, d'avoir un fil RSS, mais rien � faire: une erreur emp�che que �a marche, de toute �vidence et je ne suis pas en mesure de savoir d'o� �a vient. En attendant que nos amis de Blogger m'aident � r�soudre mon probl�me, mais ils sont plut�t occup�s en ce moment, pas de fil RSS pour Douze Lunes, mais je ne renonce pas!
Jur� n�142
Civic Duty, Sure, but Wasn't the White House Enough? (NYT, enregistrement gratuit exig�)
Bill Clinton a �t� s�lectionn� pour �tre jur� � Manhattan. Il est "prospective juror n� 142" pour le proc�s d'un membre de gang de rue accus� de meurtre. On saura Lundi prochain s'il est d�finitivement s�lectionn� comme jur�. Apparemment les procureurs n'en veulent pas et le juge s'inqui�te de voir un jur� prot�g� par le Secret Service dans son tribunal.
