I'm dealing with a lot of crappy thing, excuse my French. So I will blog irregularly for a while. I mean hell when you starts getting dirt on your shoulders, it just invites more problems.
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I'm dealing with a lot of crappy thing, excuse my French. So I will blog irregularly for a while. I mean hell when you starts getting dirt on your shoulders, it just invites more problems.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Bernie Madoff is getting over 100 years in jail. Somehow, this sentence just feels shallows to me . It isn't punitive. It doesn't even serve as deterrent for all the crooks out there. After all, if you can steal billions of dollars, live the life of a super-rich most of your life and then just spend your old age in jail, why wouldn't want to be Madoff and try to f**k, beat the system?
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:26 PM in America, justice, Law | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I'm daring to take some time off this week-end. I'm braindead...
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I believe that in our time the hardest thing to find is balance. Everybody is talking about Michael Jackson and the media is, of course, one more time, overdoing it, because it's the only thing that it knows how to do in these cases. The saddest thing is that you realize very quickly that the show is about something else and that the deceased has been depersonified, objectified and that the feelings expressed by individuals who are, often too exhibistionistic or too manipulative (which doesn't mean necessarily that they are insincere) , are about the ones expressing them not the person who died. Tragedies don't have to become spectacles.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I agree with Jessa Crispin on this:
Marriage has freaked me out since I received a proposal at the age
of 21 from a nice young man who didn’t see why I needed to work. My
mouth said, “Umm, I need to think about it;” my brain said, “Run.” Ever
since that event, I have fled all the men who prefer to set up a house,
packing my bags the second he starts hinting about rings. It’s a
difficult position to take in a culture so marriage obsessed. Let me
rephrase that: Wedding obsessed. Engagement ring obsessed. Proposing on
top of the Empire State Building obsessed. The crushing need to find
that man, get that ring, and pick a date permeates movies, books,
television, and the commercials. Even in that horrible Sex and the City
movie, after one attempt at a wedding goes awry, our heroic couple
reunites to wonder why they needed to get married in the first place.
Couldn’t they just be together? The sentiment only lasts a moment, and
then they’re off to the altar again.
And a wedding is the assumed goal of any love story. You can be one
of those crazy couples together for 10 years, but when you fall in
love, those around you immediately start asking when you’ll get
married. Yet never has marriage seemed less appealing. Divorce is not
only probable, but expected, to the point that the cynical phrase
“starter marriage” has entered our vocabulary. The great love stories
of our time are tabloid wedding photos of celebrities, everything
airbrushed and shiny and choreographed to the last second. The same
tabloids will stop at nothing to find cracks in the marriage only a few
issues later, and will shame and pity a divorced or single woman until
that rock is on her finger. It’s love as business arrangement, as item
on a checklist, as social conformity.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:13 PM in culture, west | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Now that Jonathan Chait has figured Obama out (hat tip: Norm Geras), everything makes sense. I get it just like those cavemen in the Geico commercials do:
Obama began his presidency by elaborately courting the opposition
party. Republicans in Congress believed that, by flamboyantly
withholding cooperation, they could deny Obama his stated goal of
bipartisan harmony and thus render him a failure. Instead, they wound
up handing Obama the alternative victory of appearing to be the
reasonable party. Polls showed that the public, by overwhelming
margins, believed that Obama was trying to work with Republicans and
that Republicans were not reciprocating.
Likewise, by defusing the complaint among
Islamists that the United States disrespects their religion, Obama can
more easily force the Iranian leadership to negotiate on the terms of
its stated goals. This is actually "a hard-nosed tactic of community
organizers," as American Prospect editor Mark Schmitt wrote
in 2007. "One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to
draw the person in," Schmitt explained, "treat them as if they were
operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how
they actually would solve the problem."
This
apparent paradox is one reason Obama's political identity has eluded
easy definition. On the one hand, you have a disciple of the radical
community organizer Saul Alinsky turned ruthless Chicago politician. On
the other hand, there is the conciliatory post-partisan idealist. The
mistake here is in thinking of these two notions as opposing poles. In
reality it's all the same thing. Obama's defining political trait is
the belief that conciliatory rhetoric is a ruthless strategy.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 10:17 AM in America, Obama, politics, power | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I agree with this:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 07:27 PM in America, international politics, Iran, Media, Obama, politics, west | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Stuart Jeffries on Sarkozy, the Burqa, and its assertion that it isn't welcomed in France (hat tip Arthur Goldhammer)
Sarkozy now goes further, following revolutionary logic in not just
chasing those who dress in ways he and French political culture finds
intolerable out of public spaces, but pursuing those who dress in a way
that is a rejection of western values even into their private worlds.
He said: "The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of
subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French
republic." Even religious justification is bad enough, run the
suppressed premises of this argument, but the absence of such
despicable justifications is worse.
The woman in a burka is
revealed as subservient to patriarchal culture. She must be made free
to choose to be more western. Sarkozy proposes, in giving his backing
to the establishment ofa parliamentary commission to look at whether to
ban the wearing of burkas in public, that such imposed freedom would
improve her lot.
French venerate such abstract freedoms. We
needn't. They were, for Hegel, the basis of the revolution's collapse
into the Terror in which, he argued, individuals were sacrificed to the
ill-conceived pursuit of abstract freedoms. Sarkozy is thus a
modern-day Robespierre, proposing some women – whom he presumes to have
been silenced by patriarchal society and whose voices he doesn't want
to hear –be terrorised in the name of the kind abstract freedoms France
has venerated for 210 years. Let's see if he succeeds.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 07:15 PM in burqa, conflict, France, fundamentalism, gender, identity, international politics, Religion, Sarkozy, west | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Jean Edelstein on the difficulty for women to write about sex:
I'm wondering if the problem is that women aren't allowed to write about bad sex or rather to write badly about sex without it becoming a statement not just about their femininity (frigidity or wantonness) , but also their ability as a writer.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 03:31 PM in culture, gender, identity, literature | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Something about these assertions from Carol Swain bugs me:
I am astonished at how easy it is for some Republicans to deny their party has a serious race problem. In a few days, I anticipate releasing an advice letter I wrote to President Bush about this matter. I am very aware of the grand history of the Republican Party and would love to see the party reclaim the mantle of Lincoln and integrate its membership with Americans who share the values it once espoused.
Lastly, my desire to pursue an apology came after I became an active participant in the reparations debates associated with Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree and TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson. Although I oppose slave reparations, I believe much good could come from an apology. I have heard scores of elderly African-Americans state that they had no interest in monetary reparations. In fact, many said that there was not enough money in the world to repair the damage done to their ancestors. They expressed a desire for the government to acknowledge the injustice of slavery and the Jim Crow period that followed.
Likewise, I have had numerous Southern white women approach me with tears in their eyes to offer personal apologies for what their people did to my people. Clearly, I am not the appropriate person to receive an apology for what the U.S. government failed to prevent. My pursuit of an apology is a consequence of my hearing the pain of real people. It is clear to me that America would benefit by dealing with this issue in a forthright manner. The voice-vote Senate apology fails to meet my standards for how the matter ought to have been handled.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 02:23 PM in America, politics, race, racism | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Something about Mark Steyn's point about Obama, Paul Anthony Rahe, and Soft Despotism rubs me the wrong way. I think that it is the fact that it isn't totally absurd even though it comes from an individual whose views on Europe, France especially I despise:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 03:05 PM in America, different perspective , Obama, politics | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I wonder if Frank Furedi would apply the following principle no just on the British National Party (BNP), but on every shameful views including those who advocate for example the Burqa for women, deny the Shoah, and favor violence:
I believe that the banishment is an admission of powerlessness, a confession that one doesn't possess the tools/doesn't know how to educate society and to persuade it to make good decisions on important subjects. There is such a thing as the duty, an obligation to persuade/to educate for those who believe fervently that they are on the right side of any issue, especially when those issues are decisive to the overall health of a society.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 02:34 PM in different perspective , disintegration, free speech, fundamentalism, politics, trends | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Gideon Rachman on Berlusconi, his love of young women, and Italian Culture:
Whatever the truth about these strongly-denied stories, Berlusconi -
now in his seventies - has never made a secret of his liking for young
women. I once went to a dinner he gave in Rome for European
journalists. He ensured that all the prettiest women were seated at his
table. One young Turkish woman, who had evidently missed the
journalism-school lecture about “not getting too close to your
sources”, ended up sitting on Berlusconi’s lap.
Many Italians find their prime minister’s behaviour acutely
embarrassing. One commentator on the BBC this morning groaned that it
is like “having Benny Hill as prime minister”.
I sympathise. But I also think that Berlusconi is representative of
something broader in Italian culture. If you watch Italian television
it seems to be absolutely stuffed with game shows, full of giggling
scantily-clad models who are being leched over by much older (and often
shorter) men.
I've heard this before. It seems to me that every time a man acts like a pig, he will always find an excuse by talking about his genes, his manliness, his culture, his upbringing or just the fact that all the women he had/took/seduced were either willing or just bitches who haunted him until he game them what they wanted.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:13 PM in culture, different perspective , ethics, europe, gender, identity, international politics | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Neil Clark on Sarkozy and his willingness to put the Burqa at the center of the French political debate:
The secret of Sarkozy's success is that he knows how to spot a vote
winner. While the left sought to focus on the underlying causes of the
riots which plagued Paris in the autumn of 2005, Sarkozy, as Minister
of the Interior, simply sent in the riot police and denounced the
rioters as racaille or 'rabble'.
Faced with the impact of the global recession, he ditched his
flirtation with Anglo-Saxon capitalism and adopted more traditional dirigiste Gaullist policies - in the process completely
wrong-footing the left.
Now it seems he's played another trump card by announcing on Monday
the establishment of a commission to consider banning the wearing in
public of the burka - the garment worn by some Muslim women which
covers the entire body, including the face.
His argument for doing so is not just that the burka represents an
assault on French secularism, but that it is degrading to women. By
championing the rights of women, Sarkozy is able to pose as the
defender of the founding principles of the Republic. He also gains
kudos for dealing with a hyper-sensitive political issue head-on. And
here's the really clever part: he manages at the same time to expose
divisions on the left.
This debate about the Burqa frustrates me because it is clear that it isn't about the burqa, but about something else, about identity politics, defining/redefining what it means to be French and what/who cannot become French. I don't mind having such a debate, but it isn't cheap to confine it to the interdiction of the Burqa of French society when the issue is about finding the balance between liberty and religion, all religions not just Islam for after all, if as Sarkozy asserts the Burqa is about foreign traditions and cultures, then what is the problem? Can women wear the Burqa if they assert that they do it just because they like it, just as they would wear fur or a thong?
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:38 PM in burqa, contradictions and betrayals, different perspective , feminism, France, fundamentalism, gender, identity, international politics, multiculturalism, politics, Religion, west | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:37 PM in Music, Video | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I'm having a tough weekend so far...I'm struggling with so many issues that I wish I could just scream in the streets of Manhattan to let my frustration out instead of letting it build inside of me. Well, the good news is that all I have to do is to learn how to be more patient and master self-control. The bad news for me is that I'm not sure that I can do it.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I won't be watching Wimbledon this year. Nadal just withdrew. What a shame! Tennis isn't just the same without him. We are just back to a few years ago when it was Federer all the time and when nobody could even managed to give him a fight because they thought he was a Tennis God. I know that Federer got devoted believers and I have to say that I like the guy because it is hard not to be amazed by his grace and his talent ( I was never able to even watch Sampras), but he doesn't do it for me because Tennis to me isn't about religion, it is about the divine or the sublime, it is about battling yourself, your opponent, overcoming your pain or making him feel the pain. Without Nadal, WImbledon becomes just another boring and apparently larger than life religious temple. Because I hate religious experiences, which are about nothing more than praying for the divine and being in awe of its beauty, I'm skipping Wimbledon this year.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 02:54 PM in Religion, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I'm almost done reading L'Elégance du Hérisson. It is taking me an usually great amount of time because I have no free time and because I have decided to make the experience last a little while. I'm at the end of the novel, I'm wondering if I'm love, in lust or just hypnotized by something unfamiliar, too peculiar not to be more than alright. That's the only subject I'm allowing myself to ponder, for now... I will finish it this weekend.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:45 PM in Books, literature | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Douglas Muir explains why Ahmadinejad will win. I have to say that I can't believe that serious people are thinking that he will lose and Iran will have changed regime in the next couple of weeks. As I have said previously, we have seen this movie before.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 02:11 PM in international politics, Iran, Middle East | Permalink | Comments (0)
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This argument defending sexual moralists and their frailty both disgusts and bugs me:
Sexual moralists do not typically claim that they are immune from
temptation. To the contrary, as illustrated by the odd behavior noted
in that Washington Post article, they sometimes have a hyperawareness
of their vulnerability to it. Those who succumb to temptation are weak,
but they are not necessarily hypocritical.
John Edwards cheated on his wife while promoting a campaign
narrative in which he portrayed himself (with Mrs. Edwards's cynical
collaboration) as the devoted husband of his cancer-stricken wife. Now that's
hypocrisy. From the available evidence, John Ensign is nowhere near as
bad a hypocrite as John Edwards. How's that for faint praise?
Only in America and in religious/fanatically religious countries would one even write about sexual moralism without questioning it, without finding the fact that women can still be perceived by men in power as solely sexual creatures through whom the devil will eventually tempt them to betray their faith and their God. Was it the difference between Ensign and Ahmadinejad on this issue except that the latter would tolerate a woman's presence if she is properly covered so as not to provoke him to take or to have impure thoughts when he isn't in the proper forum to mount her to say things vulgarly.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 09:47 AM in America, ethics, fundamentalism, politics, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I can't bring myself to be riveted by the whole Iran thing because the story is hyped by the media which, I sense is waiting with unhealthy anticipation for an explosion, for the image, the interview, the thing, the moment that will bring more attention not so much to Iran, but to the courage of journalists covering the story. I feel as if I'm in a crowded theater watching a poorly made movie with an average cast who lacks the patience required to let the story evolve and speak for itself. I've seen all of this before and what are missing in this case, yet again, are distance, good reporting and something other than expected and cliché analysis about the struggle of a people for freedom. It's sad to say but I think this story will only become compelling at its end when the emphasis will shift from speed to accuracy and from syrupy clichés to singularity and fractured realities.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:47 PM in Current Affairs, international politics, Iran, Media, Middle East | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Another one of Bruce Bawer's alarmist and ridiculous assertion on Europe, Islamofascism, Muslim Immigration, and Pim Fortuyn's heirs who are battling courageously for its soul:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 02:53 PM in europe, identity, immigration, international politics, multiculturalism | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Toril Moi on Women, gender, writing, and literature:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:27 PM in gender, identity, literature | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I didn't watch the Bill Maher's soft take down of Obama and his love of TV last week on his show because I stopped watching it more than a year ago. I thought that he had stopped to be funny because he wanted so much to believe in the audacity of hope. In an op-ed in the LA Times, Maher writes:
I'm
still a fan, but there's a fine line between being transparent and
being overexposed. Every time you turn on the TV, there's Obama. He's
getting a puppy! He's eating a cheeseburger with Joe Biden! He's taking
the wife to Broadway and Paris -- this is the best season of "The
Bachelor" yet!
I get it: You love being on TV. I love my bong,
but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while. The other day, I
caught myself saying to a friend, "Don't tell me if he's fixed the
economy yet, I'm Tivo-ing it."(...) It's getting to where you can't turn on your
TV without seeing Obama. Who does he think he is, Dick Cheney? Come on,
sir, you don't have to be on television every minute of every day.
You're the president, not a rerun of "Law and Order." Save some
charisma for a rainy day. (...)I'm glad that Obama is president, but the "Audacity of Hope" part is over. Right now, I'm hoping for a little more audacity.
I guess the fact that he can criticize Obama by daring to ask him to be more substantive rather than to act as if he were president in a Hollywoodian movie means that it may become easier for comedians even when they are first and foremost fans, to make fun of the president. Who knows may be change is coming...
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 08:53 AM in America, Bush , Obama, politics, Television, Video | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Oliver Kamm on Obama's Cairo speech, Islam, and political reforms:
I'm agnostic on this issue as I am on most Obama's speeches because I don't think that speeches are good substitutes for policy. Kamm has a point, but I wonder if all of this fluff matters.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 10:09 AM in America, Current Affairs, different perspective , fundamentalism, international politics, Iran, Middle East, Obama, Religion, violence, west | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The truth is, violent white-on-black crime is a rarity in Britain, by
comparison – although white-on-Asian crime is rather less so. The
overwhelming bulk of violent street crime in London is committed by young
black men, and in numerous cases against white people, although one would
not impute a racial motive; the statistics suggest that young black male
criminals are quite happy to stab or shoot anybody who hoves into view with
either a bulging wallet, a mobile phone or an assumed reflection of
disrespec’ in their eyes.
Apologies if this offends – but that’s how it is. At most, the African
Caribbean population of London is about 12% of the whole. But black males
are responsible for nearly 60% of arrests for robbery – and the overwhelming
majority of gun crime, most of it black-on-black violence.
We skirt this issue, mostly for decent, if deluding reasons – that a
proportion of young black males is more likely to commit violent crime than
other sectors of the population. It is a form of racism, though, to assume
that the problem is simply a given, and unalterable – but we have been
hamstrung in our attempts to deal with it for reasons of political
correctness.
The propensity of some young black males to underachieve at school and later
commit crimes of violence has been seen for too long as a roguish expression
of cultural diversity, exacerbated by our own inherent racism and economic
oppression; in other words, it’s not their fault. Indeed the culture of
violence, misogyny and epic drug abuse, exemplified in rap music, has been
lapped up by a bovine liberal white culture that finds the vibrancy and
“edginess” of gangsta rap something in which we should all exult and indeed
emulate.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 09:47 AM in contradictions and betrayals, crime, race, racism, United Kingdom | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Democrats have long ago bought into the idea that minorities can only
relate to people who look like them and must be coddled by people who
do not. The Party of Lincoln, on the other hand, carries the unenviable
burden of telling black, brown, and yellow people that it welcomes
them, even as it insists that they have no special place, purely as a
result of their race, in the party's core beliefs about the free market
and individual freedom.
So the black man in the White House came to power by incessantly
invoking his biography and identity. Barack Obama reminded everyone
every day on the campaign trail that he is the son of a man from Kenya
and a woman from Kansas. Michael Steele, the black man at the center of
Republicans' political comeback efforts, prefers to talk about
"personal freedom, liberty, and the desire for self-governing."
It is a stark contrast. Unfortunately, political realities skew in
favor of the man of biography and the party of identity politics.
Racial entitlement often creates a corrosive effect on minorities. Some
brazenly demand jobs, college admissions, or business transactions
based on race or gender, while others insist that identity trumps ideas
or objective considerations. In that vein, Obama's Supreme Court
nominee believes that "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her
experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a
white male who hasn't lived that life."
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 11:28 AM in America, identity, Obama, race | Permalink | Comments (0)
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David Post has an excellent post on France, the EU and Internet Speech, which is a must-read. My only criticism is that it asks more questions than it answers. The reason for that is that we are at a time where nobody quite knows where the law will go if the two options concerning Internet Speech remains between total freedom and censorship.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 03:14 PM in europe, France, free speech, Law, technology | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Posted by Christelle Nadia at 02:26 PM in Music, Video | Permalink | Comments (0)
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It is more exhausting to work at home than in an office. I have been working from home for almost a week now and I am more tired than I was before. I'm refusing to accept that anemia is a real sickness so I'm blaming everything on the fact that I'm not as organized and focused as I should be. Apart from that, the weather in New York just sucks to say thing prosaically and bluntly. It feels like there was never any spring and that summer is cheating with winter because it is actually cold. I only have a simple wish right now; it is to find the strength to exercise, just a little bit, to feel useful physically. I have no energy. I can't focus. I feel like I live in a coffin. What a year!
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I'm ambivalent about this:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:44 PM in Books, culture, literature | Permalink | Comments (0)
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This week is another tough one for me so I won't post as much as I want to. I have so many things to do and an apartment to order. My anemia makes me feel like I weigh 500 pounds and like my brain is a thousand years old. I have just ordered a new computer and new "smartphone" so I'm in what I like to call a transitional period that hopefully will make my world and my work more technologically savvy. After I heard the news yesterday on the new Iphone, I was so happy I resisted the urge to get one last week. The trouble that I have one is that I don't see the point of getting one if I constantly need to worry about the fact that it is costing me way to more that it ought and that Apple will in the next month come up with something better. I think a phone company should do an Ad comparing the its product to the Iphone just like Apple does with pc with those persuasive commercials on TV, which make you want to get a Apple computer just to avoid having to deal with Vista and other silly Windows updates. That said, I'm going to get a Macbook Pro fairly soon, but I will wait another year to get an Iphone.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:01 PM in technology | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Quote of the day from Stanley Fish:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 11:09 AM in America, Obama, politics, quote | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Well, Federer won the French Open... He deserves it for he has shown throughout his career that he is better than Sampras and probably the best player of the last forty years. I have to admit that I have only eyes for Rafa Nadal and that my heart is aching for him right now for I have the suspicion that his body is going to stop him from becoming the best player that he can be. The funny thing about this French Open is it confirmed the fact that to be adopted by the French crowds one has to do three things: to be the best at what one does, to do what one does beautifully and elegantly, and to be cultured or to speak French fairly well which always give the appearance of intelligence, finesse, and of a great education (when one looks a certain way or possesses the other two attributes). Those are the reasons why the French crowd in Roland Garros loves Federer and has always believed that he is one of the them. I can't help but thinking how far Obama would be if he learned only a few words of French, but he is ,in the eyes of most of French, Frenchlike since the one thing that he can't do is to speak French.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 11:59 AM in France, Obama, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Why do I feel like weeping when I read this?:
Well, I guess America is back to the end of the eighties when its favorite tune was one of the worst songs I've ever heard (in English anyway) Don't worry, be happy.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 06:42 AM in America, international politics, Obama, politics, United Kingdom | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I'm working from home today. I'm physically exhausted and I'm braindead. I have no energy. The fact that it is raining buckets in New York doesn't help. Anyway, I've started reading L'Elégance du Hérisson and I'm waiting to finish it and to digest it to write anything on it. In other words, I don't know whether I like it or not, it is a little bit like the first time you have sushi, you have to finish the meal before you decide whether you like raw fish.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 04:22 PM in Books | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I'm having an awful week. My anemia is back in full force and it is kicking my you know what. Nevertheless, I wanted to write on Obama's speech in Cairo today. My personal opinion is that it will matter not in the immediate future, but in the next decade if it is followed by change (there is that awful word again), by something more substantives than syrupy words and good intentions. Speeches matter in international relations when they are followed by actions and that they announced the beginning of a new era in a country's foreign policies. It is for that reasons that although George W. Bush speeches were criticized for their dullness, arrogance, and their simple-mindedness, they were meaningful. In simpler terms, Ze speech will matter if it is the beginning of something new, the first step in the creation of a new era in American foreign policy (I have my doubts, but hey, I could be). Reza Aslan has a more critical take on the speech, but I think that it is because he bought in the whole messianic mystique that came with Obama's election:
Obama should have chosen Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim
nation, a moderate, pluralistic, wildly successful democratic country
whose citizens just last month overwhelming voted for secular and
moderate Muslim parties over the country’s more radical Islamist
groups. Instead, by choosing Cairo as the backdrop to his speech, Obama
has in effect rewarded Egypt’s president for life, Hosni Mubarak, for
his bloody, blatantly anti-democratic, and dictatorial rule.(...) While it is becoming increasing clear that the new administration
has abandoned the half-hearted and ultimately hypocritical
democracy-promotion program of the previous administration, it is
equally clear that the Muslim world has done no such thing. On the
contrary, as I have written
in these pages before, the overwhelming majority of people in the
Middle East (78 percent, according to Gallup International) consider
democracy “the best form of government” and continue to clamor for
greater political freedoms, especially in countries like Egypt.
What the Muslim people want to hear is what kind of pressure America
is willing to place on its dictatorial allies in order to force them to
address their people’s aspirations for genuine political, economic, and
social development.
The truth is that, after four months of Obama in the White House,
the Muslim world has had its fill of his platitudes about “mutual
respect.” They want to know what actions the Obama administration is
willing to take to fundamentally change America’s relationship with the
Muslim world. Chiefly, they want to hear about Obama’s specific policy recommendations for dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:53 PM in different perspective , fundamentalism, international politics, Middle East, North Korea, terrorism | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Kathy Gilsinan reviews Reza Aslan's How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 12:09 PM in Books, fundamentalism, Religion, terrorism, violence, War | Permalink | Comments (0)
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ahhhhh...the beauty of perceived powerlessness:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 10:11 AM in future, international politics, Israel, Middle East | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Terry Sanderson on Secularization, Christianity, and the future of Europe:
A Eurobarometer poll (pdf)
reveals that when asked about what they value most, only 7% of
Europeans nominated religion. That same poll tells us that about half
of Europeans think that religion is afforded too much importance. When
asked about what values the European Union represents, the ranking
starts with human rights (37%), then peace (35%), democracy (34%) and
way down last again is religion with only 3%.
So, if Christianity is not the future of Europe, will the continent become Islamic?
The
answer is again, no. The capitulation of western governments to the
violence of Islamic jihadists and the subsequent channelling of all
discourse about Muslims through religious representatives has created
the impression that all Muslims are deeply pious and inimical to
western values. They are not.
We have been bamboozled by the term "Islamophobia", which suggests that Islam is under systematic persecution in the west. But new research by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (pdf)
shows clearly that while people who identify themselves as Muslims are,
indeed, victims of much discrimination, by their own account hardly any
of it is because of their religion. Another poll
showed that young Muslims have a strong desire for westernisation,
which again contradicts those who have been appointed to speak for them
from the pulpits.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 09:13 AM in culture, europe, fundamentalism, identity, immigration, integration, Religion, west | Permalink | Comments (0)
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It's good to have a cathartic laugh in the morning:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Ahead of Obama's visit to France thus to Sarkozy, it was predictable that Americans journalists and others were going go be tempted to remake the portrait of Sarkozy and to point that he never become what they expected him to be. Here is an example from the Economist (hat tip: Schott's Vocab)
I have always believed that Sarkozy was a politician in the wrong country and that he would have made a popular president of the United States. The funny thing about all the articles on anti-Sarkozysm and egocracy is that their authors haven't yet realized that Sarkozy has a lot in common with Obama, that he is Obama's twin; his main problems are that he reigns in an environment where all his faults overshadow his qualities. If I wanted to be cute, I would says that Sarkozy is Danny de Vito in the movie Twins and that Obama is Schwarzenegger. The difference is that both are very good at what they do and that one, unfortunately, in part because he has the looks and governs in the right environment gets all of the praise and of the adoration while the other has to pick up the flowers. Sarkozy must wake every morning and see Obama in the mirror, but Obama is too beloved right now to see himself in Sarkozy.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 07:43 AM in America, different perspective , France, Obama, Sarkozy | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I've just realized that impatience has a lot to do with fear and that sometimes, it is closely related to self-derogation. I just got a copy of Muriel Barbery L'Élégance du hérisson (The Elegance of the Hedgehog). I will read it tonight and probably finish it if it is half as good as the person who offered it to me says it is. In any case, I don't think I can get anywhere without patience, but at the same, what do I do with my quenching thirst for speed. My favorite song in High School was Let is Flow because at the time, I already knew that I had a problem with time, with letting go, with being Zen, may be that's why I liked my Judaism's class so damn much.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 10:09 PM in Books, literature | Permalink | Comments (1)
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This assertion from Elaine Lafferty is hilarious, but it also exposes a truth, which worries me almost as much as it makes me uncomfortable:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 06:35 PM in America, gender, identity, justice, Law, politics, power, race | Permalink | Comments (0)
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I agree with this;
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 06:06 PM in literature | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Sugary excerpt of the day from Johann Hari:
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:22 PM in contradictions and betrayals, quote, United Kingdom, violence | Permalink | Comments (0)
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My first thought on the following sugary excerpt from Emmanuel Paparella's article on the crisis is that it makes the complex even more complicated in attempt to reach acceptable conclusion:
I am of the opinion if one takes on Kierkegaard's view and argues that the crisis is one of spirit then it is impossible to make Ayn Rand's vision of the world the problem. One of the biggest problems of our times comes precisely from the fact that the spirit has been separated from the intellect and the prevailing opinion is that feeling good means to stop thinking, questioning to be Obamamically cheerful and hopeful about change and the word. The current crisis just shows that existence has become about the material and that the material has become spiritual and that being the fittest is about having more, consuming more, and not being ashamed of being bulimic. The issue is no longer whether there are alternatives to systems, policies that brought chaotic and devastating results, but still whether modernity, technology have made humans better enough to accept to take the challenge and the danger not to repeat history and to dare to invent something new to remind themselves that existence is still the most precious gift of all.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 11:49 AM in economy, global economy | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Sugary excerpt of the day from Slavoj Zizek
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 04:07 PM in economy, global economy, globalization, quote | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Interesting stuff from Caitlin Moran:
I have to say that the fact that Moran's observations about the linguistic and racial problems of twittering are interesting, they don't make me want to care because she is addressing mundane, pc, and fluffy issues, which come to the center just because they are modern even though they should force the technically aware crowd to the realization that some worldviews and categorizations are just too old and too odd for the new world.
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 02:25 PM in future, immigration, language, technology, trends | Permalink | Comments (0)
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A factual statement, which hasn't yet become relevant or rather which is relevant, but accepted at the moment
Posted by Christelle Nadia at 01:58 PM in America, ethics, Media, Obama, politics, Television | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Henry David Thoreau: Walden and Civil Disobedience (Penguin American Library)
Judith Butler: Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge Classics)
Samuel Beckett: The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929-1940
Kenan Malik: From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy

