the earth is blue like an orange

The Chorists is a french film realised by Christophe Barratier, issued in 2004. It has been a succes in France despite the simplicity of the production.French actor, Gérard Jugnot acts as a supervisor, Clément Mathieu, in a boy’s boarding school after the WWII. The pupils are troubled boys, some of them no more than shy and lonely, others violent. The disciplin is strict and rough. The director acts more as if he were in charge of a prison and doesn’t seem to care for the children. His only obsession is discipline and rules. In this hard atmosphere, Mathieu, who has been through lots of insuccesses, will not accept to play his part in such a game. He is a sensitive and good man who can’t desist to trust the boys if they are given a chance to improve. As a musician he will introduce them to music and forms a choir, convinced it could be a way of « salvation » for them. And the miracle will occur. In spite of the scepticism of the director and the others teachers, he will manage to change the atmosphere of the school because of the boys’ involvement.After many ups and downs, Mathieu is dismissed, soon after the director is also dismissed, Pierre Morhange, the famous soprano of the choir, leaves the school, Pépinot, the youngest pupil who desesperatly wants a home, goes with Mathieu.The happy end of the tale still exists : Morhange, introduced to the music by Mathieu, will become a great conductor, Pépinot will find affection with Mathieu. Mathieu will have the simple life of a good man attentive to the others. I agree with reaction of the public and I liked this film very much. In our world of individualism and competition, this film is just like a ray of sunlight in the fog. It defends some kind of anachronistic values : the kindness, the lack of pretention, the humility, the faith in the others’ abilities, the dedication…Last but not least, the music and the boys’ voices are a real pleasure.

Barry Lyndon is a film by Stanley Kubrick. It tells us the tragic story of Barry, a young and gentle Irish boy, whose father died in a duel, and therefore who must take care of his mother.He thinks he has found the perfect woman, until he discovers she is attracted by a man by far older than her, but who has the unquestionable advantage of being quite rich. Barry challenges him to a duel, in which he kills the suitor. He must flee, and after being robbed, he join the English army. After a few time, he desert, however he is caught by the Prussians and  recruit in their army. He save the life from one of his superiors, and obtain to be appointed in the police after the end of the war. He is used as a spy to keep an eye on an Irish gambler, but soon he becomes the Irishman’s spy. Both of them manage to flee, and start to travel through Europe, and they earn money playing cards (and cheating, obviously).After all theses experiences, the loyal, kind, naïve and honest boy becomes a traitor, deserter, cheat, violent person.Barry meets a beautiful and rich woman, the countess of Lyndon, whose old husband dies a few time after. The countess, who has already a son, falls in loves with Barry, who marries her only because of her fortune and title. The day the wedding is celebrated, Barry, who was gentle with the countess, becomes abject. He betrays her without hiding.He has with his woman a son, that he loved  without limits, while he can’t bear the other son of the countess of Lyndon. He tries to obtain a title, but fails. He reaches his apogee. From that moment, his life starts to change. His loved son dies, his woman becomes mad of sadness and tries to commit suicide, …

ro hear the soundtrack : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyqE77jbqmM

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation , also called CBC, is a Canadian national public radio and television broadcaster. It is currently offering a file about work, that joins many testimonies about different aspects of the theme “The Way We Work”: Disappearing Jobs, Looking for Work, No More 9 to 5, Work Vs Life, Where We Work and Work Culture.Work culture is about what work is about what work is and what it implicates.

“Working against the system” is a very interesting testimony about volunteer work. The author, Marguerite Pigeon, tell us about her actual experience in Honduras, in the city of La Esperanza. She is conscious of being, like everyone in our economical system, a victim of the will for more money, more comfort. But as she tries to defend an indigenous group’s rights, alongside the association COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras), she understood that the volunteered work, though it’s not paid, brings much more than the «normal» work. It gives the impression of fighting for something higher than the wheel.

“The rhythm of work” is about Peter Adamo’s business. He is a Toronto’s greengrocer who works for the company North American Produce. He has to accept the constraint of a greengrocer : fruits and vegetables are perishable goods, and must be sold before they are rotten, even if the seller has to offer low prices. Concurrence is severe, and no help can be expected from the other sellers. There is no solidarity. An other problem is the supplier’s punctuality: when a product arrives late, the buyer aren’t here any longer and the seller loose his day. Peter has to lead with the “Tyranny of time”.

The cost of work compares the cost of the clothes, the incomes, the cost of the transportation… for different jobs, different cities. For instance, a business woman clothes cost $490 while an astronaut space suit costs… $3,15 millions.

I think that work is a real value: what are we supposed to do with our time otherwise? Work should be a way of improving our social status, but not only or not necessary that. It must lead to a greater goal: helping the other. It can be doing volunteer work for an NGO, or trying, as expanding a company, to offer jobs for the ones that need them. Work is actually the reflex of our society: a world of elitism and rivalry, while it should be a way of fulfilling our potential, using wisely our capacities for the benefits of humanity and improving the world.

The Ice people is the English name that was gave to the science-fiction book called La Nuit des Temps (literally: the night of times). This romance was written by René Barjavel, the author of Ashes Ashes (Ravage). René Barjavel, a French writer and journalist, was born in 1911 and died in 1985 in Paris. In the Ice Age, he depict, like in many other books he wrote, the excesses caused by science, human greed for knowledge (even with a price for the human kind), … A group of scientists stationed in Antarctica discovers, coming from deeply above the ice, a signal, similar to a radio wave. Curious, the scientists try to reach the place where the signal comes from, but decide to call other scientists from all over the world to help them, as they don’t manage to excavate so deeply (more than a kilometer) above the ice. And what they discover is more surprising that anything they imagine: in a gold “egg”, two persons, a man and a woman, have laid, in hibernation, for billions of years. And they don’t come from a future civilization, but from a past civilization, that ruled the world billions of years before our times.  This discovery awakes the interest of all the nations on Earth. Many scientists are sent there. The team decides to awake first the woman. Both the woman and the man are incredibly beautiful. The woman, Élea, is about to reveal them fabulous things, that can. Simon, a French doctor, falls in love at the instant he sees Élea. But she always seems to be unhappy, and even when she tells them everything she new about her civilization, she is lost in her souvenirs. In fact, in the seemingly perfect world she knew, a war was about to happen between her developed continent, Gondwana, and the other continent where disorder ruled. The most impressive weapon her country had was a bomb more powerful than a nuclear bomb. But people greedy for power had decided to use this weapon. A scientist, Coban, decided to protect the human kind. He made a gold egg, and in this egg the most intelligent man and the most beautiful woman should enter and hibernate until the effects of the bomb cease. Élea was the third most beautiful woman, but the first had an accident and the second became pregnant. Élea was forced to accept Coban’s idea to perpetuate the human kind. But she loved Païkan much more than it’s possible to imagine, and did’nt want to be separated from him. All her world collapse, and the perfect world becomes a frightening one. She tries desesperately to escape with Païkan, but… The man that lies in the golden egg is Coban. In the present times, Simon is also desesperate, why he understands that Élea will always love Païkan, even he is dead. But, while Élea narrate her past, the avidity of some menaces the expedition: Élea’s civilisation had invented a way to create using… nothing, thabns to Zoran’s equation. Some countries would do anything to obtain the equation…The Ice People is at the same time an affecting romance, a science-fiction book (some aspects remember 1984 from Orwell), a philosophical work,… The love between Païkan and Élea is amazing. They never say: “Païkan is mine” or “Élea is mine”, but “I am Païkan’s” or “I am Élea’s”. I recommand this moving, amazing, fantastic book. Behind the story, a critical of our societies and the avidity of the men and the governments. In the team, there is a scientist coming from America, and another one who is a Russian woman. First both blame the other, but finally the American appreciate the Russian and vice versa. As the book as been writen during the cold war, we can see the will of the author to see a word without conflicts.

To know more, a website dedicated to Barjavel and his work (in French)

photo from flickr

All buildings are meant to collapse. As we construct them, we know  perfectly well that they will crumble, gnawed by the years. Such are societies, arts, revolutions. The men that paid with their life revolutions to establish a new government knew that this system would not be eternal, that one day other men would destroy what they had done to rebuild a new world that would also be ephemeral. The men that fought for new ideas or a new conception of art knew that one day their movement would be considered as old and outdated ; the avant-garde would give place to a new avant-garde. When we invent a fabulous machine, the oldest machines are eclipsed by it. To create is to destroy. Whatever we erect, we knock over the precedent construction. Each movement sweep away the precedent and is inevitably destroyed by the following.So why do we built and give everything to build? Maybe because some buildings cross ages. When it happens, the man who managed to build a durable thing enter in the history, because he defied the time. Everything fades with time. But the greatest reason is that we want to ignore that the time will rub out our existence. And, anyway, the creation is no vain. Indeed, what matters is not the creation itself, what matters is the moment of the creation. It is maybe a thousand times more important than the object, the idea, the government, … we create. It’s the idea that stays and not the object. We build just for building. The ideal work is the one that has never been finished, like sigh ready to fly off. The artist captured the moment of the creation. When we finish a work, then we know that it’s ended, that the spark of the creation extinguish, that we will have to make it reappear, because from then on that the work is completed, it starts its progression to oblivion and collapse.

two egyptian women in a polling station (from the site www.lemonde.fr)

President Mubarak, who has been in power for about a twenty-five years, has now proposed a referendum. The population doesn’t participate: the number of Egyptians that voted is quite low.

For the first time since he took power a quarter of a century ago Mr Mubarak allowed his opponents to criticise him and campaign for alternative parties.

Since the murder of president Anouar Sadate, in 1981 (a quarter of a century ago),
Egypt is under the emergency law. Amnesty International today called on Egyptian members of parliament to reject proposed amendments to the country’s constitution, which the organization described as the most serious undermining of human rights safeguards in Egypt since the state of emergency was re-imposed in 1981. The organization Amnesty International called the population to boycott the referendum. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian party, obtain one fifth of the elect at the parliament in 2005. As the new constitutional project forbid parties based on religion, President Mubarak seems to be trying to take away the political opposition.

Hamdy Hassan, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, says: “Seven hundred of our members have been arrested for participating in street demonstrations. Eight out of twelve members of our politburo are behind bars. The Government is trying to reduce the space in which we can move’.

Moreover, President Mubarak shows clearly that he would like his son to succeed him. Democracy seems to be an endangered species in Egypt.

Principal topics of the constitutional reform: 

Article 5: Parties or political activities with a religious base or reference are forbidden. 

Article 136: The president is not obliged to solicit the nation opinion by means of a referendum to dissolve the parliament. 

Article 179: The authorities are allowed to arrest suspects, rummage their domicile, read their letter and wiretap them without judiciary mandate. 

Moreover, the president can decide to make military tribunals responsible for the judgment. of the persons suspected of terrorism.

To have more information:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article678100.ece

http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGMDE120082007

Some countries, preoccupied with the global warming caused by the excessive emissions of carbon dioxide, decided to use bio fuels instead of  diesel made with petrol. The bio diesels are less polluting that the normal ones. In Brazil, for instance, the cars run on sugar cane alcohol. But I think the bio fuels will not solve the question of global warming. The many fields that are used for sugar cane plantation could served for growing foodstuffs for people and corn for the animals.

Electric cars can’t neither be a solution. I remember of a Spanish, that was complaining because the numerous aeolian windmill disfigured the landscapes of his country. The problem with electric cars is the production of electricity.

In fact, I think all the renewable energy sources that are proposed for the transportation won’t solve anything. The real problem is our behaviour. How many businessman go to work alone in their car? We should developpe public transportation, like buses and subway, and optimize the private transportation, trying to use all the space we can in the cars. We could easaly divide by two the carbon dioxide emission caused by transportation. All we need is to act; if everybody do something, we could  limit the problem.

“World Looks to Ethanol to Ease Fossil Fuel Dependency”, on the newspaper Voice ofAmerica: an article about Bush Latin America tour. The brazilian mostly disapprove this trip, whose objective was to discuss ethanol (sugar cane alcohol) with president Lula.

I think being oneself is being different.For exemple, I really hate the fashion. The principle is that everybody must be like everybody. It’s the herd instinct: when one sheep throw itself over the edge of a cliff, all the sheeps of the herd do the same thing. So I would like to do something really different, that would follow no rule.

See more progress on: do something different

I always had the impression that our destiny is determinated. Even with good studies, we will not have a real future. We will just follow a path. It’s difficult, and sometimes impossible, to create his own path. Well, it’s my impression. Platon (I think it’s him) said that “there is no favourable wind for the person who doesn’t know where she goes”. But sometimes I would like to give up doing all the things I’m doing, and follow a road that goes nowhere.

See more progress on: follow a road without knowing where it goes