(You can choose or or both)

Friday, October 24, 2008

School ... Ecole

(Photo de la même chose qu'hier, mais prise depuis l'autre côté).
Un petit garçon est assis en classe, il regarde par la fenêtre.
Le prof l'interpelle, "David, tu fais quoi ?!"
"Je réfléchis, Monsieur"
"Et ben, arrête ça et fais ton travail !"
Ce n'était pas moi, mais ça aurait pu l'être, et ça résume assez bien ce que je pense de l'école, et comment je l'ai vécu. L'ennui mortel, l'envie d'être ailleurs, le sentiment du temps perdu, l'absence absolu de mise en valeur de la créativité, de l'originalité et de l'individualité.

Découvrir qui on est, ce qu'on veut, ce qu'on pense, et oser devenir soi-même est le défi de toute une vie pour chacun de nous.

L'école ne fait que nous retarder de 15 ans.

(Same thing as yesterday's photo, but taken from the opposite side).
A little boy is sitting in the classroom, looking out of the window.
The teacher interrupts him, "David, what are you doing?"
"I'm thinking, sir"
"Well stop it and get on with your work!"
It wasn't me, but it could have been. And it sums up pretty well what I think about school, and how it felt for me. The awful tedium, the long hours dragging by, the desire to be 'somewhere else', the feeling of all that lost time, the absence of any encouragement to be creative, different or myself.

Finding out who I really am, what I want, and what I think, and daring to 'become myself' is a life-long challenge for all of us.

School just puts you back 15 years...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Three worlds ... Trois mondes



Au chateau de La Tour, ils sont en train de faire des grands travaux pour préparer une exposition florale ce week-end. Y compris inonder les jardins pour faire des petits lacs.

(Si vous ne reconnaissez pas la référence du titre, vous pouvez vous instruire ici.)

In the gardens of the castle just in front of our regular play area, they are performing major transformations for this weekend's flower festival - including flooding the gardens to make a pseudo-moat.

(If you don't recognise the reference in the title, learn here)

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Kalia l'intrépide




J'ai de la chance, même si Kalia a pris le goût de l'aventure dans le domaine de la nourriture et de la télé, elle accepte encore volontiers d'aller à un de nos trois places de jeux de prédilection (parfois même les trois en un promenade !)

Elle grimpe, elle court, (elle veut encore que je la pousse sur la balançoire...), elle tente de rentrer en contact avec les autres enfants pour jouer avec. Parfois ça lui réussi.

Even though Kalia has got more adventurous recently about food and videos, she's still quite happy to alternate between our three local play areas (sometimes we do all three in one walk).

She runs, she climbs, she swings (as long as I push), and she attempts to get other kids to play with her. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.


Ayant constaté que j'avais oublié de retourner cette photo, pour finir j'ai considéré que c'était pas mal comme ça.

I was about to rotate this photo when I decided that it's not bad as it stands.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Teeth (2) ... Dents (2)


Oui, toujours et encore ces fichus dents qui font souffrir Rebecca, et par extension privent ses parents de sommeil...

Y'en a deux qui ont percé en bas, mais apparemment ce n'est pas fini. Difficile de ne pas dépasser les doses prescrites à Xh du matin.

Les nuits ininterrompues, comme les repas ininterrompus, sont un lointain souvenir...

Mais quand elle ne crie pas, elle est super mimi, cherche le regard, me fait la fête quand je rentre à la maison. Veut bouger tout le temps et voir ce qui se passe. Surtout ne pas être alongée, mais tient à peine assise...

Those teeth still giving Rebecca gip. And giving us short nights.

There are now two little incisors poking through at the bottom, but it's not finished apparently. Difficult to avoid overdosing with Calpol when it's early-o'clock in the morning.

Unbroken nights, and uninterrupted meals, are a distant memory...

But when she's not wailing, she's very cute, always trying to catch our eyes (can you say that in English?), does lots of gurgles and smiles for me when I get home. Wants to be up and looking at whatever's going on - definitely not lying down!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Goal!

Je ne sais pas où Kalia a pu voir des gens jouer au foot, mais un jour il a fallu aller chercher un ballon, un chapeau et des gants, pour jouer au foot dans sa chambre. C'est effrayant et émerveillant de voir toutes les idées qu'elle a, et les connections qu'elle fait entre les choses.

Effrayant parce que souvent je ne capte que de justesse où elle veut en venir - ce qui signifie que les fois où je n'ai pas capté, je peux trop facilement m'énerver parce que je ne comprends pas pourquoi elle traîne, ou 'fait la difficile', ou me tire dans l'autre direction que celle que j'avais prévu.

Exemple typique : l'autre jour en rentrait à la maison par le jardin. Elle a cueilli une paquerette. Elle en a pris une deuxième qu'elle m'a donné, et que je devais tenir à ma main droite, et puis on devait marcher en rond en tenant nos paquerettes. Au bout d'un moment, la moutarde commençait à monter quand elle a dit "Aha! Daddy". Tout d'un coup "mes yeux s'ouvrirent" et j'ai remercié le ciel pour les heures 'perdues' à regarder ses DVD avec elle...

Pour les incultes qui ne connaissent pas par coeur toute la collection de Winnie l'ourson, c'est un passage d'un des films pour Tigrou, Porcinet et Winnie, sous la direction de Coco Lapin, sont en train de répéter leur terrible plan pour renvoyer Maman Kangourou du Forêt des Rêves bleus. Banal? Peut-être. Enfantile? Bien-sur. Sans importance? Pas du tout. Si j'avais écrasé cette brindille, ça renvoyait quoi comme message à ma fille?

Daddy ne comprend pas/je suis stupide. Daddy s'en fiche/je ne vaux rien. Tais-toi, arrête tes idées créatives et fais juste ce qu'on te dit.

Suis-je trop sensible? Peut-être bien. Mais Kalia, c'est ma fille, et de ce côté-là elle tient de moi. Et vous savez ce que Jésus a dit concernant les enfants et les meules de moulin...

Seigneur, donne moi encore de la patience et de la compréhension!

I don't know where Kalia had time to observe people playing football, but recently we had to dig out a ball, gloves and a hat so that she good play football in her bedroom. It's both wonderful and scary to see the imaginative ideas she has, and the connections she draws between different things she learns and sees.

Why scary? Because often I only 'twig' at the last minute what she's trying to do or communicate. Which suggests that often I'm not understand her at all, and I get cross because I can't understand why she's being so 'slow', or 'difficult', or pulling me in another direction than the one I intended.

A typical example - the other day we were coming home 'the back way' through the garden, and she'd picked a daisy. She picked another one and gave it to me, and I had to hold it in my right hand, and then we were supposed to walk round in circles holding the daisies. I was just about reaching 'shirty', when she said "Aha! Daddy". I was immediately enlightened and a relief of understanding infused my brain, along with thankfullness that I do watch her videos with her sometimes.

For those of you uncultivated persons who don't know the entire back catalog of Winnie the Pooh cartoons by heart, this is from a scene where Tigger, Piglet and Pooh, under the direction of Rabbit, are rehearsing their plan to oust Kanga from the Hundred Acre Wood. Trivial? Maybe. Childish? Of course. Unimportant? Not at all. If I'd squashed that squib too, what message does it send to my daughter?

Daddy doesn't understand/I'm stupid. Daddy doesn't care/I'm worthless. Shut up, stop having creative ideas and just do what you're told.

Am I over-sensitive? Possibly, but Kalia is my daughter, and she takes after me in that respect. And you do know what Jesus said about children and millstones, don't you?

Please God, give me more patience, and more understanding!

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Anonymous


(Kalia aime le maïs).
Anonymous a laissé un commentaire sur mon article concernant les financiers l'autre jour. Mon frère me demande de le traduire en anglais, ce qui est bien, parce que c'est ce que je pensais faire.


(Kalia loves corn-on-the-cob)

Anonymous left a comment on my post about heads rolling the other day. I thought it was probably worth making a post out of. And my brother pushed me in the right direction by asking for me to translate it... (I suspect anonymous may be an English speaker and live in the US, given that there are several links in English, and that he/she knows who Ron Paul is. That and the fact that the French don't do irony that much - but then again Americans aren't said to either.)
Yeah, well obviously it's the neo-liberal market which created laws like the CRA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act) which incited millions of households to get into debt. And it is also 'laissez-faire' which gave birth to state-sponsored companies (Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac) which were supposed to ensure all these doubtful lones, come what may. And let's not forget that the US central bank which manipulates interest rates and thus creates housing bubbles - amongst others - is a purely liberal invention… (http://www.marxists.org/francais/marx/works/1847/00/kmfe18470000b.htm -> 5. Centralisation of credit by the state, by means of a central bank, who's capital will belong to the state, and who will have an exclusive monopoly).

Yes, yes…

Before talking about 'laissez-faire', read up on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics
And particularly learn about the theory of economic cycles, which we have to do with at this time, and which you seem to have some difficulty with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Business_Cycle_Theory
And see a US liberal presidential candidate, to see what that translates to in reality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG2PUZoukfA

Finally, on the subject of traffic which you also mention in your post:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html

Some light reading for this weekend, and just maybe some of your presuppositions might be changed.

Kind regards.
My answer in the following comment translates to:
It's true that I'm not an expert, but I'm not sure that it is the dodgy lending in the US which are the cause of the current crisis. If I understand correctly, it is the 'derivatives' and speculation based on those mortgages which spread the rot....

I read somewhere that Warren Buffet has been warning about this problem for several years ... does he count as an expert, at least?

If it's too good to be true, it surely isn't. But greed and crowd-thinking make people tend to believe that the disaster is for 'later', and that 10% profit with zero risk is realistic.

My problem with neo-liberal theories is that too often it is only the bits that benefit the rich that get put into practice.

We're supposed to be against protectionism: So let's break down all those protective barriers in third-world countries, and go and buy up all their public services. But you'd better not lay a finger on the cotton-growing lobby in the US!

Free movement in a free market? Yep, for money and arms, but not for people - not poor people anyway.


What makes me mad is that since we have killed off God, morality and ethics, the only value which is still accepted in public discourse is the value of money, and the ethics of economics first.

//I had a colleague who said that the best thing for road safety would be to have a 10-inch spike sticking out of all steering wheels...

(If I had the time, I'd create another blog about the weirdness of traffic signposting here in Switzerland. There really would be enough for a whole blog!)
People who met me briefly at university would be amazed to read this stuff on my blog. I used to hold out about how Christians shouldn't get involved in politics. I guess that was in the time before I learnt to think for myself!

I actually don't really care for politics or money. But I do care about people, and justice. And unfortunately you can't care about people and justice without paying some attention to politics and money.


Thursday, October 16, 2008

Wait for the bill ... Attendez l'addition


(Pas sûr que dans 2 ans elle va accepter ça comme preuve qu'elle aime les carottes).

Alors voilà, les marchés rebondissent. Les gouvernements cachent la 'm' au chat. Et il en faut des 'tunes pour la cacher, dites-donc.

Mais je n'y crois pas des masses, personnellement. L'argent fait perdre la tête, il est vrai, mais je préconise de revenir au bon sens de nos grand-parents:
"On n'a rien sans rien" - donc les centaines de milliards qui apparaissent par magie dans les poches des états qui étaient déjà dans le rouge: méfiance ! Ca sent exactement le même type de magouille financière qui nous a mis dans ce pétrin. Du genre "regardez ma main, il n'y a rien? Regardez ma main, voilà de l'argent !"

"On fait avec" - trêve d'achats compulsifs ou thérapeutiques. Ca peut aussi nous faire du bien de se prouver qu'on arrive à faire sans, qu'on arrive à attendre, repousser, ou abandonner nos petites envies. Le relationnel, c'est ce qui est de plus riche dans la vie, et ça ne coûte pas d'argent.

"Tout peut servir" - le recyclage c'est gentil, mais ne suffit pas - il faudrait viser autant que possible la réutilisation.

"On s'aide mutuellement" - le troc des dons, c'est bien. Le troc des affaires aussi. Se prêter des trucs qu'on n'utilise que rarement, au lieu d'acheter chacun le sien. Ca va à l'encontre de nos habitudes individualistes, mais quand tu seras dans la dèche, tu seras moins fier...

"On raccomode" - on a pris l'habitude d'une société où ça coûte moins cher d'acheter du neuf que de faire réparé l'ancien (et 'ancien' peut se compter en mois !). Là aussi, il faudrait changer nos habitudes. Dans le pays des pauvres, le bricoleur est roi !

Voilà, mon grain de sel. Ne comptez pas sur les financiers et le politiciens pour nous tirer de l'affaire, ils pataugent dans la semoule.

(I suspect that in two years time she won't accept this as proof that she does like carrots).

So here we are - the markets bounce back after soothing announcements. The world's governments sweep all the problems under the carpet. A rather expensive carpet.

I don't have much faith in these rescue plans, to be honest. Money makes your head go funny, apparently, but I think we should take a leaf out of our grandparent's book:

"There's no such thing as a free lunch" - So those thousands of billions which magically appear out of our governments pockets (despite the fact that they were already in the red) - beware! It looks very much like exactly the same kind of financial smokes and mirrors which got us here in the first place. Pouf! And a rabbit comes out of the hat. Watch carefully, because it could just as easily disappear.

"Making do" - let's stop that compulsive buying, or retail therapy. It can also be rewarding to prove to ourselves that we can make do without, that we are able to wait, that we can cope! Relationships are the most rewarding thing in life, and they don't (need to) cost any money.

"Nothing goes to waste" - recycling is good, re-using is better.

"You scratch my back" - helping each other out - I fix your computer, you fix my hair. Sharing our stuff to. Lending rarely used appliances instead of everyone buying their own. It goes against the grain of our individualistic habits. Don't wait till you're hungry to discover that no man is an island.

"You can fix it" - We've become accustomed to a topsy-turvy world where it's cheaper to buy something new than repair something old (where 'old' can mean just months). We need to change that habit too.

That's my tuppence worth. Don't count on the bankers and politicians getting us out of this mess, they're up to their necks in it and haven't a clue, I suspect.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Teeth ... Dents

Silence radio ces jours, mais ce n'est pas les idées qui me manquent, mais le temps. Au boulot grosse échéance, à la maison pas mal d'activités et une fille qui fait ses premiers dents.

Je n'ai malheureusement pas de photo, c'est un peu difficile d'accès là-dedans, mais il suffit d'y mettre le doigt pour en avoir la preuve !

Not much time for posting at the moment, I've got plenty of ideas, but big deadlines approaching at work, and a little girl teething doesn't leave much space for anything else.

I don't have any photographic proof, it's a bit difficult to get a good shot, but if you stick your finger in her mouth, you'll get it nipped...

Friday, October 03, 2008

Joke ... Blague

Une dame âgée se fait interviewé à la radio, au sujet du déçès récent de son mari:

"Alors, Mme Dupont, racontez-nous comment cela s'est passé"
"Ben, je préparai le souper, et Harry est sorti dans le jardin chercher des haricots"
"Et alors?"
"En récoltant les haricots, il est mort, d'une crise cardiaque"
"Et qu'avez-vous fait?"
"J'ai ouvert une boîte de petits pois"
---
C'était (je crois) la blague préférée de ma grand-mère maternelle. Elle a eu une vie dure, mais elle connaissait bien le fou rire.

Paraît-il que mon grand-père ne voyait pas ce qu'il y avait de drôle (se sentait-il visé ?).

M'enfin, c'était un drôle de type, lui. On devait l'appeler 'Pater' et non 'grand-père', soi-disant qu'il ne voulait pas avoir l'impression d'être vieux.
Avec le recul, je comprends plutôt que c'était une manière de mettre de la distance (qui se sentait, par ailleurs). 'Sais pas pourquoi.

Nos vies sont faites d'aspérités, de questionnements, d'histoires bizarres, de choses louches qu'on ne comprendra jamais tout à fait. En voilà une de plus.

An old lady being interviewed on the radio about her husband's recent demise:

"So, Mrs Smith, can you tell us exactly what happened?"
"Well, I was getting the dinner ready, so Harry went down the garden to get some green beans"
"And...?"
"Well, he dropped dead, right there in the garden, from a heart attack."
"So what did you do?"
"I opened a can of peas"
---
This was (I believe), my maternal grandmother's favourite joke. She had a rough life, but she did know how to have a good giggle!

Apparently, my grandfather didn't see what was funny (maybe he took it personnaly?).

But he was a strange chap. We were to call him 'Pater' and not 'Granddad'. Ostensibly because he didn't want to feel old.
In hindsight, I suspect it was to maintain some kind of distance (which could be felt in other ways). Dunno why.

Life is full of these nobbly bits, unanswered questions, weird situations, strange memories which we'll never really understand.

Ho-hum.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Heads should roll ... Financiers, au bûcher!

Que dire?

C'est rageant d'entendre les discours des politiques qui justifient des injections colossales d'argent publique pour sauver les fesses des entreprises privées:
"Mais vous comprenez, si on ne fait rien, ça va être le catastrophe".

MAIS C'EST LE CATASTROPHE PRECISEMMENT PARCE QUE VOUS N'AVEZ RIEN FAIT!

C'est bien ça le credo néo-libéral non? On laisse faire le marché, on n'intervient pas. Par une main invisible, tout va s'équilibrer tout seul.

C'est de la foutaise.
Ca a autant de sens que de dire qu'on va laisser tomber le code de la route, les rond points, les feux, les stop. La circulation va s'équilibrer tout seul, quoi.

Ben oui. C'est le mec avec le plus gros char qui gagne, et tant pis pour les autres.

Mais en l'occurence, le mec avec le gros char l'a planté dans un mur, et il veut maintenant qu'on fasse passer le chapeau pour qu'il puisse s'en acheter un autre...

Bref. Ca va mal, ça va continuer à mal aller, et personne va avouer leur tort.

(Voilà un truc un peu plus gai à ce sujet : http://www.saveusnotthem.com/)

(... but they won't)
What can I say?

It drives me crazy hearing politicians justifying bailing out private companies with public money:
"You have to understand, if we don't do anything, it will be a disaster".

BUT IT ALREADY IS A DISASTER, BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!

But that's the neo-liberal way, isn't it? Non-intervention, let the market decide, the 'invisible hand' will even everything out.

Borlocks.
That makes about as much sense as saying we should get rid of the highway code, roundabouts, traffic lights. Let the traffic decide, it will even out on its own.

Yeah right, and it's the bloke with the biggest tank who wins, shame for everyone else.

As it happens, the bloke with the tank ran it over a cliff, and now he wants us to dig in our pockets to buy him a new one...

Hohum, things are going badly, they're going to carry on going badly for a good while, and no-one is going to admin they were wrong.

(Here is a slightly more light-hearted take on the subject: http://www.saveusnotthem.com/)