As I started my almost weekly drive from Austin to Houston this afternoon, the classical radio station (KMFA) was finishing Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, From the New World. After that, the announcer came on and said that on the occasion of Memorial Day, the station would join its listeners in a minute of silence to honor the servicemen and -women who had died. Silence dutifully followed.
I don't know about you, but while I am tremendously saddened by the lost of those young lives, and I am as ready as the next person to honor their memory, the last thing that comes to mind as a reaction to the current war, which has so far cost more than 4,000 such lives, is silence. In fact, what I want to do when I think of that war is scream. I want to scream to Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell and Rumsfeld (wherever the last two are now hiding in deserved disgrace): I know you didn't fire the bullets or arm the IEDs that killed these people, but you manufactured the conflict in which they were killed. You are thus complicit in their deaths. And the memory of these poor people is not well served by silence, it is better served by an outcry -- hopefully an outcry that will continue until November 4, Election Day, so that you are not succeeded by more of the same.
On the same drive a week earlier, I heard a reading from the book "War Wounds: a Father and Son Return to Vietnam" by Tom Bissell. One quote struck me, so I sent a text message to my own email address in order to remember to look it up, and I now have it as one of my email signatures, ready to be used for the right audience:
"War, when necessary, is unspeakable. When unnecessary, it is unforgivable."
Monday, May 26, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Love the Sorcerer, and the Witch Mezzo
I went to the Houston Symphony on Thursday evening, for a concert that had a Spanish theme throughout: De Falla's El Amor Brujo (which was translated in the program as "Love the Magician," although I think that "Love the Sorcerer" better conveys the ambiguous and sometimes malevolent tone of the piece); Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez; De Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain; and Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol. Altogether a long and rich concert, one that I would still recommend to people who read this early enough to be able to catch the Sunday matinee performance (tomorrow).
The only sour note (so to speak) came from the first piece, strictly because of the singer. I know that photos in programs are always dated, but this was so extreme that it makes Elizabeth II look positively age-sincere on UK stamps. I'm talking about someone looking 30 in the program, and being 60 in reality. She did look like a witch, which is actually quite appropriate for this piece, but was clearly not intentional. Her voice did not carry well (and I was in the middle of the fourth row). She sings opera, and that's perhaps why she kept taking dramatic poses and making exaggerated faces to convey the emotions of the gypsy girl, but it just looked absolutely ridiculous when just standing by herself in front of an orchestra. And her red-and-black gown must have been badly tailored at home (or else she needs to get a refund), because the left strap kept falling off. Believe me, any "wardrobe malfunction" would not have been very pretty to witness in her case!
While this was a shame, the next piece obliterated this bad experience quite nicely. The solo guitarist, Eliot Fisk, was amazing... and the audience recognized this so well that he played two encores: a transcription for the guitar of Paganini's Caprice n° 24, and a piece by Francisco Tárrega (it might have been Recuerdos de la Alhambra, but I'm not sure).
After the intermission (I told you it was a long concert) Shai Wosner was the pianist in De Falla's Noches en los jardines de España, which I found a little long and discursive, less packed with tense emotion as the rest of that composer's œuvre. And finally, as befits this sometimes very loud and brassy orchestra, Rimsky-Korsakov provided the sonorous (some would say "noisy") finale.
The only sour note (so to speak) came from the first piece, strictly because of the singer. I know that photos in programs are always dated, but this was so extreme that it makes Elizabeth II look positively age-sincere on UK stamps. I'm talking about someone looking 30 in the program, and being 60 in reality. She did look like a witch, which is actually quite appropriate for this piece, but was clearly not intentional. Her voice did not carry well (and I was in the middle of the fourth row). She sings opera, and that's perhaps why she kept taking dramatic poses and making exaggerated faces to convey the emotions of the gypsy girl, but it just looked absolutely ridiculous when just standing by herself in front of an orchestra. And her red-and-black gown must have been badly tailored at home (or else she needs to get a refund), because the left strap kept falling off. Believe me, any "wardrobe malfunction" would not have been very pretty to witness in her case!
While this was a shame, the next piece obliterated this bad experience quite nicely. The solo guitarist, Eliot Fisk, was amazing... and the audience recognized this so well that he played two encores: a transcription for the guitar of Paganini's Caprice n° 24, and a piece by Francisco Tárrega (it might have been Recuerdos de la Alhambra, but I'm not sure).
After the intermission (I told you it was a long concert) Shai Wosner was the pianist in De Falla's Noches en los jardines de España, which I found a little long and discursive, less packed with tense emotion as the rest of that composer's œuvre. And finally, as befits this sometimes very loud and brassy orchestra, Rimsky-Korsakov provided the sonorous (some would say "noisy") finale.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Friends, Friends Everywhere! (and Restaurants, Too)
Okay, it’s a corny title, perhaps not more than usual; but it was indeed raining friends in Paris last week.
As my overseas trips go, this was one of the shortest ones. I arrived at midday on Monday, and left around the same time on Saturday. Had I not been in Europe three weeks earlier already, I would have been the first to find this uncivilized.
These 120 hours included four fairly long and intense days of work, but I managed to cram quite a social agenda within that time, and I even got a decent amount of sleep, in an unpretentious but nice hotel room very close to the Eiffel Tower, at the bargain rate for Paris of 105 euros a night.
Monday was my recuperation day after the overnight flight, and I just went to a brasserie to eat by myself. On Tuesday, I had plans to meet Jean-Noël. When he called me around 7 p.m. from a town north of Paris where he had been for the day, we settled on 9:15 p.m. at a Tibetan restaurant in Montmartre, Gang Seng, to which he had previously introduced me. He ended up arriving at almost 10, but we still managed to spend a great two hours catching up on each other’s life and work.
On Wednesday, I had plans to meet my ex-colleague Emmanuel, whom I hadn’t seen in probably five years. He selected Yamamoto, a Japanese restaurant tucked away in a side street near the Opéra (note to tourists: for a real Parisian, there is only one Opéra in Paris), in an area where I found out that there are now dozens of them (Japanese restaurants, not operas). The amazing thing about meeting him after all this time is that he is still exactly the same: a permanent smile on his face, the nicest guy in the world, GQ-handsome, totally hyperactive, and not looking a day older than five years ago. And we fell back into the same friendly and easy banter we were used to when we went out to dinner in Islington then, as if we had seen each other a week earlier. It just warmed my heart that there are people like that, not just in the world in general, but in my world.
Thursday was an unplanned, but equally successful evening. I was actually not sure whether I was going to want to see anyone, because my project for the week still required work. I was getting nervous that there might still be too many holes in the resulting "white paper" by Friday afternoon, when it was due. But by 7 p.m.-ish, I was also getting tired of the day. I had told another ex-colleague that I was in Paris and had hoped for a last-minute call from him, but nothing had come. I was reasonably content with the idea of eating late by myself at Josselin in Montparnasse, but on a hunch I called Mohamed (see my prior "You Write Too Much" post). It turned out that he was expecting his friend Isabel, a medical student from Colombia whom I had seen a couple of times at parties in Boston last year (she was part of a group gravitating around our contingent of summer interns from France). She was due to return that evening from seeing one of those ex-interns, Ben, in Poitiers, and therefore was coming back on the TGV... at Montparnasse station! So we immediately made plans to meet at Josselin at 9:45, and had a wonderful time. This being Isabel’s first time in Paris, it was a great opportunity to give her one of the experiences that are not particularly mentioned in tourist guidebooks. Mo was crazy as usual (he doesn’t speak Spanish, but he did recognize "loco" when I was making fun of him talking to Isabel). Giorgio recognized me and couldn't let us go without buying us after-dinner drinks, so Isabel got to taste her first Calvados. They took me back to my hotel just before midnight, so I told them to turn the corner by the Ecole Militaire after dropping me off, so they would have a chance to see the tower’s sparkling light show at the top of the hour.
So there remained Friday. I had exchanged e-mails with my friend Jorge (the accidental model for Givenchy’s "Irresistible" eau de toilette for men, but this is another story) earlier in the week, and knew that he was coming back from Dubai in the morning, and was leaving for London in the evening to see his girlfriend, who lives there. So it wasn’t entirely clear that between his mad schedule and the demands of my own project, we could find the time to meet for lunch — but Jorge called mid-morning and offered to come to our office so it would take me less time. We only had an hour and a half, but made the most of it. This was another one of these easy, relaxed conversations that can only take place when you're good friends and you're not trying to put up appearances, you don't have anything to prove, you can just be yourself and the talking and the listening just alternate spontaneously.
That may be what was missing from my dinner meeting that same night, in an eastern area of Paris I am a total stranger to, with members of the gay alumni group from Ecole Polytechnique. Only three people came in addition to me, which was disappointing. They were all very nice, although different from my usual crowd in a way I could not really define. I certainly felt like we were strangers observing each other. The conversation revolved a lot around the food and the wine, and was helped by the ebullient personality and familiar behavior of the assistant manager, Camille, quite a character whom the others knew well. When we discussed American politics for a while, especially the Democratic primaries, one of my companions soon remarked, "what a serious topic we’re discussing tonight!" I think he was relieved when the more superficial banter resumed. It was certainly a pleasant evening in good company in an excellent restaurant, but nothing close to the four previous get-togethers of the week. I may certainly have more dinners with that group in the future, and meet more of them, and may get more comfortable with that crowd over time. But for now, it served a really useful purpose: it allowed me to benchmark my relationships and friendships, and appreciate the difference.
Merci Jean-Noël, Emmanuel, Mohamed, and Jorge (in order of appearance). Gracias a tí también, Isabel, although I certainly know you less. I am happy that I just got to see all of you, I love you... and I can't wait to do this again.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Blaming People for Saying the Truth
The Democrats' race for the presidential nomination continues, and is growing more vicious. One hopes that the Pennsylvania primary will mark the end of this internecine battle, but that was said before — in February and in March, several times, to no avail.
That the standard bearer for the party is chosen through a protracted series of contests that keep them in the limelight for weeks is not a bad thing per se. On the contrary, one might argue that many Republican voters have been disenfranchised by the early consecration of John McCain — and I'd be surprised if many of them felt motivated to vote in the remaining state primaries, given how little meaning they have left.
However, extending the ideological contest between Clinton and Obama would be fine it it served to shed light on their policy proposals, and if it wasn't destructive to the survivor's chances in November. Unfortunately, on both counts, the trend is exactly in the wrong direction.
Witness the latest clash about Obama's remarks to the effect that some people, feeling left out by shrinking federal (non-military) spending and disproportionally hurt by the recession, "cling to their guns and their religion" and their anti-immigrant sentiments to make sense of their lives. Since he said that, both Clinton and the Republicans have attacked him, the media have been all over his case ("elitist" being the milder adjective employed to describe him), and he has himself backpedaled — all in spite of one simple, all too easily ignored factoid: he is right!
The populist mood in the country (and the inability to discuss religion in factual terms) is such that making the statement he did is toxic. Clinton is now wrapping herself in a very ill-fitting cloak for her: someone who is "close to real America" — and by implication, is so unconditionally embracing it that the idea of critiquing how people form their judgments is considered tantamount to treason.
Yet it is true that some of the most vociferous opponents of gun control, the most pious proponents of school prayer or of the dismantling of barriers between church and state, and the most xenophobic (and, let's say it, racist) people in the U.S. are Democrats, not Republicans. Especially in southern states or in poor rural areas. This is not unlike the xenophobic current that existed in the Communist party in France in the 1980s and 1990s, based on the same fear that "they are taking our jobs," which led to this revolving door phenomenon in which people disappeared from the extreme left to reappear on the extreme right and vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen, thus proving that the political continuum is not a straight line, it is a circle!
I was, and I still am, positive about a Clinton presidency because of her ability to tap into a large talent pool of advisers and potential cabinet members. I was, and still remain, concerned that in a tight election, the lingering "race factor" could throw the election to McCain in some southern states if Obama is the candidate. But Clinton's tactical move last week — joining the critics rather than supporting Obama by acknowledging at minimum that his remarks, however undiplomatic, raise a real issue — do not reflect well on her character. If she wins because she cannot have the honesty to support an "inconvenient truth," then there will be some sadness mixed in that victory. But if Obama wins because he retracted what he knows to be correct, then it is equally sad.
That the standard bearer for the party is chosen through a protracted series of contests that keep them in the limelight for weeks is not a bad thing per se. On the contrary, one might argue that many Republican voters have been disenfranchised by the early consecration of John McCain — and I'd be surprised if many of them felt motivated to vote in the remaining state primaries, given how little meaning they have left.
However, extending the ideological contest between Clinton and Obama would be fine it it served to shed light on their policy proposals, and if it wasn't destructive to the survivor's chances in November. Unfortunately, on both counts, the trend is exactly in the wrong direction.
Witness the latest clash about Obama's remarks to the effect that some people, feeling left out by shrinking federal (non-military) spending and disproportionally hurt by the recession, "cling to their guns and their religion" and their anti-immigrant sentiments to make sense of their lives. Since he said that, both Clinton and the Republicans have attacked him, the media have been all over his case ("elitist" being the milder adjective employed to describe him), and he has himself backpedaled — all in spite of one simple, all too easily ignored factoid: he is right!
The populist mood in the country (and the inability to discuss religion in factual terms) is such that making the statement he did is toxic. Clinton is now wrapping herself in a very ill-fitting cloak for her: someone who is "close to real America" — and by implication, is so unconditionally embracing it that the idea of critiquing how people form their judgments is considered tantamount to treason.
Yet it is true that some of the most vociferous opponents of gun control, the most pious proponents of school prayer or of the dismantling of barriers between church and state, and the most xenophobic (and, let's say it, racist) people in the U.S. are Democrats, not Republicans. Especially in southern states or in poor rural areas. This is not unlike the xenophobic current that existed in the Communist party in France in the 1980s and 1990s, based on the same fear that "they are taking our jobs," which led to this revolving door phenomenon in which people disappeared from the extreme left to reappear on the extreme right and vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen, thus proving that the political continuum is not a straight line, it is a circle!
I was, and I still am, positive about a Clinton presidency because of her ability to tap into a large talent pool of advisers and potential cabinet members. I was, and still remain, concerned that in a tight election, the lingering "race factor" could throw the election to McCain in some southern states if Obama is the candidate. But Clinton's tactical move last week — joining the critics rather than supporting Obama by acknowledging at minimum that his remarks, however undiplomatic, raise a real issue — do not reflect well on her character. If she wins because she cannot have the honesty to support an "inconvenient truth," then there will be some sadness mixed in that victory. But if Obama wins because he retracted what he knows to be correct, then it is equally sad.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Frog Readings
A quick post, fueled by guilt... I've been on the road for two weeks, and I was sick last week, so while there were interesting goings-on in Paris, Cambridge, Madrid, and Boston, I haven't shared anything. "Sick" for me means that I was maintaining an almost normal work schedule from 8 to 5, then taking the T (I was in Boston) back to the hotel, crawling under the covers with three aspirins, and trying to sweat out the fever so I could restart the same grind the next day. That may be crazy, but the MIT Media Lab visit and discussions were, as usual, superbly motivating.
Then I also had a miserable 15-hour trip (door to door) from Boston to Austin -- but I'm not even really mad at Delta Airlines: it wasn't really their fault, they rerouted me as well as they apparently could, and my bag made it before me. Next time, perhaps I should travel in my bag.
I am reading two books now. They could hardly be more different. "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely is about the ways in which we make economic laws useless because our decisions are not based on rational calculations -- but interestingly, those irrational decisions follow some pretty stable emotional laws, such as the fact that "free" has an irresistible appeal. The author conducted fascinating experiments (on unsuspecting MIT students...) that illustrate his points, and he tells the stories with wit and perspicacy. He's a little less convincing when he makes sweeping generalizations to public policy, but he may be onto something. It's an excellent read anyway.
"The End of the World Book" by Alistair McCartney could be described as the modern, gay man's version of Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary." It is presented in the form of short A-to-Z articles that range between facetious, literary, surrealistic, and erotic. If you thought you might guess what word you can find under the letter F, think again... you might be suprised by some of the entries (no, I haven't reached F already, I just couldn't resist getting an early peek). Alistair McCartney is the long-time lover of Tim Miller, the performance artist. I love Tim Miller's work, and I think I've seen each of his shows (well, I can remember at least five). So when he mentioned McCartney's book in his newsletter last week, I ordered it from Amazon. Now the challenge will be to get the autograph. Miller's is easy to get, if you can catch one of his memorable performances -- he is quite happy to chat with the audience after the show. But his BF doesn't travel with him, as far as I know, so this may require some plotting...
Then I also had a miserable 15-hour trip (door to door) from Boston to Austin -- but I'm not even really mad at Delta Airlines: it wasn't really their fault, they rerouted me as well as they apparently could, and my bag made it before me. Next time, perhaps I should travel in my bag.
I am reading two books now. They could hardly be more different. "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely is about the ways in which we make economic laws useless because our decisions are not based on rational calculations -- but interestingly, those irrational decisions follow some pretty stable emotional laws, such as the fact that "free" has an irresistible appeal. The author conducted fascinating experiments (on unsuspecting MIT students...) that illustrate his points, and he tells the stories with wit and perspicacy. He's a little less convincing when he makes sweeping generalizations to public policy, but he may be onto something. It's an excellent read anyway.
"The End of the World Book" by Alistair McCartney could be described as the modern, gay man's version of Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary." It is presented in the form of short A-to-Z articles that range between facetious, literary, surrealistic, and erotic. If you thought you might guess what word you can find under the letter F, think again... you might be suprised by some of the entries (no, I haven't reached F already, I just couldn't resist getting an early peek). Alistair McCartney is the long-time lover of Tim Miller, the performance artist. I love Tim Miller's work, and I think I've seen each of his shows (well, I can remember at least five). So when he mentioned McCartney's book in his newsletter last week, I ordered it from Amazon. Now the challenge will be to get the autograph. Miller's is easy to get, if you can catch one of his memorable performances -- he is quite happy to chat with the audience after the show. But his BF doesn't travel with him, as far as I know, so this may require some plotting...
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Of Jokes, Cartoons, and Freedom of Speech
The four of us who had dinner on Sunday in Les Halles plunged into a very serious discussion by the time our pizzas arrived. I can't remember how it started (my colleague Nigel would tell me that if I had blogged in real-time from one of the gadgets he loves so much, like an iPhone, I wouldn't have let this memory slip), but we ended up talking about the relative understandings of freedom of speech in different countries and cultures.
One of the first things that was mentioned was how denial of the Holocaust is a crime in France and in some other European countries. I pointed out that while I find the denials both abhorrent and ridiculous, in the U.S. people would have the right to express those opinions — and let the public be the judge.
(I didn't think of Scientology as another example of this. While it is certainly a cult in my opinion, and a harmful one by most accounts, the U.S. protects their expression even to the debatable point of recognizing them as a church, while at the other end of the spectrum Germany, I think, has banned their activity and gone after their financial empire and the way they relieve credulous people of their money).
Back to what we did discuss. I made the point, without actually taking sides, that a tenet of what Americans consider freedom of speech is that it protects even expression with which most reasonable people disagree to the point of finding the ideas objectionable and pernicious. The U.S. constitution still gives the proponents of those ideas the right to express themselves, as long as they do not directly incite illegal action. In that sense, the Bill of Rights follows the position expressed by Voltaire a few decades earlier, when he wrote to someone, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write it." And today, the American Civil Liberties Union (of which I am a card-carrying member) also takes that position, although some bloggers have complained about a trend toward a form of "political correctness" among the ACLU's national board, leading it to accept some restrictions on objectionable speech — but I am not sure if those bloggers are correct or are crying wolf on the basis of scant evidence in cases whose complexities should be further scrutinized.
One should note, by the way, that in practice the American principle of protecting objectionable speech unless it directly incites lawless actions is not consistently followed, or at least not without fighting. Professors have been disciplined for expressing objectionable opinions (including Holocaust denial, or the opinion that the state of Israel was illegitimate). Facebook has banned a group called "WP forever" where "WP" stood for "White Power." If you Google "freedom of speech objectionable opinions" you will find multiple examples, as well as many thoughtful discussions of this issue by other bloggers.
Being all computer professionals of one form or another, we touched on the issue of banning the sale of some items, such as nazi memorabilia, on the Intenet, especially on eBay. If this is illegal in France but not in the U.S., and given the difficulty of ascertaining on the Internet where the seller and the buyer actually are, it is not obvious for the intermediary to police these restrictions. As a result, the safe thing for them to do may be to ban such items everywhere, thus arguably denying someone, in a country like the US, the ability to do something that is legal there because of another country's law. And one might argue, in this case, that trading nazi memorabilia is not necessarily a sign of adherence to the ideology (this may be somewhat more credible on the seller's part than on the buyer's...).
When we were discussing whether Holocaust denial should be one of the "objectionable but permitted" expressions in the U.S. sense, one of my new friends mentioned that some of the prohibitions in European countries could "prevent historians from doing their work." I replied that surely, there is a lot of serious work that historians can do without infringing on the restrictions in question. No one is talking about preventing research into how fascism arose, how it was sustained for so many years, etc. One could even study the resurgence of extreme-right groups in various countries without violating the laws against promoting or defending the deniers. So I didn't buy that argument... but the question remained whole.
Another controversy that exposed differences in national attitudes, my friends pointed out, was the issue of the Armenian genocide. This issue has been raised by several countries, including France and the U.S., while the Turkish government seems to essentially prohibit discussing this historic event, and considered the various actions in western parliaments regarding the recognition of that genocide to be meddling in its internal affairs.
Now one could accuse me of steering away from trouble in discussions, and since my companions were all Algerian, I had to say something like, "for a similar situation, look at the controversy about the Danish cartoons." The reaction, while muted and friendly, showed me that "objectionable" is quite relative, and that I still have much to learn. Of course, my acceptance of a cartoon that makes fun of another group's divinity is in part based on my atheism. I can truthfully claim that it wouldn't make any difference to me if it was a cartoon of Jesus, the Buddha, or Mohammad. But my friends thought that while the Iranian or Saudi fatwahs against the catoonist and the publishers were unjustifiable, the negative reaction in the Muslim world was understandable. Of course, based on the earlier discussion, we could all agree that saying that something should be protected free speech doesn't mean that you can't find it objectionable, but I sensed that my friends wouldn't have minded if this particular expression had been judged illegal. And I wouldn't be surprised if one could find something (perhaps along the lines of homophobic opinions) that I would find so abhorrent that my heart would wish it outlawed, while my brain would calculate that it should be protected free speech.
One of the first things that was mentioned was how denial of the Holocaust is a crime in France and in some other European countries. I pointed out that while I find the denials both abhorrent and ridiculous, in the U.S. people would have the right to express those opinions — and let the public be the judge.
(I didn't think of Scientology as another example of this. While it is certainly a cult in my opinion, and a harmful one by most accounts, the U.S. protects their expression even to the debatable point of recognizing them as a church, while at the other end of the spectrum Germany, I think, has banned their activity and gone after their financial empire and the way they relieve credulous people of their money).
Back to what we did discuss. I made the point, without actually taking sides, that a tenet of what Americans consider freedom of speech is that it protects even expression with which most reasonable people disagree to the point of finding the ideas objectionable and pernicious. The U.S. constitution still gives the proponents of those ideas the right to express themselves, as long as they do not directly incite illegal action. In that sense, the Bill of Rights follows the position expressed by Voltaire a few decades earlier, when he wrote to someone, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write it." And today, the American Civil Liberties Union (of which I am a card-carrying member) also takes that position, although some bloggers have complained about a trend toward a form of "political correctness" among the ACLU's national board, leading it to accept some restrictions on objectionable speech — but I am not sure if those bloggers are correct or are crying wolf on the basis of scant evidence in cases whose complexities should be further scrutinized.
One should note, by the way, that in practice the American principle of protecting objectionable speech unless it directly incites lawless actions is not consistently followed, or at least not without fighting. Professors have been disciplined for expressing objectionable opinions (including Holocaust denial, or the opinion that the state of Israel was illegitimate). Facebook has banned a group called "WP forever" where "WP" stood for "White Power." If you Google "freedom of speech objectionable opinions" you will find multiple examples, as well as many thoughtful discussions of this issue by other bloggers.
Being all computer professionals of one form or another, we touched on the issue of banning the sale of some items, such as nazi memorabilia, on the Intenet, especially on eBay. If this is illegal in France but not in the U.S., and given the difficulty of ascertaining on the Internet where the seller and the buyer actually are, it is not obvious for the intermediary to police these restrictions. As a result, the safe thing for them to do may be to ban such items everywhere, thus arguably denying someone, in a country like the US, the ability to do something that is legal there because of another country's law. And one might argue, in this case, that trading nazi memorabilia is not necessarily a sign of adherence to the ideology (this may be somewhat more credible on the seller's part than on the buyer's...).
When we were discussing whether Holocaust denial should be one of the "objectionable but permitted" expressions in the U.S. sense, one of my new friends mentioned that some of the prohibitions in European countries could "prevent historians from doing their work." I replied that surely, there is a lot of serious work that historians can do without infringing on the restrictions in question. No one is talking about preventing research into how fascism arose, how it was sustained for so many years, etc. One could even study the resurgence of extreme-right groups in various countries without violating the laws against promoting or defending the deniers. So I didn't buy that argument... but the question remained whole.
Another controversy that exposed differences in national attitudes, my friends pointed out, was the issue of the Armenian genocide. This issue has been raised by several countries, including France and the U.S., while the Turkish government seems to essentially prohibit discussing this historic event, and considered the various actions in western parliaments regarding the recognition of that genocide to be meddling in its internal affairs.
Now one could accuse me of steering away from trouble in discussions, and since my companions were all Algerian, I had to say something like, "for a similar situation, look at the controversy about the Danish cartoons." The reaction, while muted and friendly, showed me that "objectionable" is quite relative, and that I still have much to learn. Of course, my acceptance of a cartoon that makes fun of another group's divinity is in part based on my atheism. I can truthfully claim that it wouldn't make any difference to me if it was a cartoon of Jesus, the Buddha, or Mohammad. But my friends thought that while the Iranian or Saudi fatwahs against the catoonist and the publishers were unjustifiable, the negative reaction in the Muslim world was understandable. Of course, based on the earlier discussion, we could all agree that saying that something should be protected free speech doesn't mean that you can't find it objectionable, but I sensed that my friends wouldn't have minded if this particular expression had been judged illegal. And I wouldn't be surprised if one could find something (perhaps along the lines of homophobic opinions) that I would find so abhorrent that my heart would wish it outlawed, while my brain would calculate that it should be protected free speech.
"You Write Too Much!"
"Claude, you write too much," said Mohamed as we were walking from the RER exit at Les Halles toward the Fountain of the Innocents (which, incidentally, is a rendezvous point for so many people who intend to become guilty of something or another). He was talking about something he had read in this blog.
I wasn't sure how to take it, and our other two companions had a good chuckle over this statement, which made Mo spend the next ten minutes backpedaling furiously. Of course, we didn't cut him any slack. "I meant it in a good way: you write a lot!" he said, having a hard time convincing us, and probably even himself.
Last week, one of my bosses called me and said, "since you write well, I wonder if you could help me with a small task." The small task has since become a big project, but I knew that when I accepted to help her. Now, even if you're only asked to write the report for a working group, the writing doesn't just reflect the thinking — it influences it. If it is written at the very end of the project, it will only influence the thinking of the audience to whom the report is destined; but if it is written iteratively, and the working group members see some of the interim versions before they're completely done, these versions can help frame the priorities they give to different positions. That may not be exactly what Ben Franklin had meant, but there is a definite if subtle "power of the pen"!
Notwithstanding this clear opportunity to have more influence than was perhaps meant to be granted, it was diplomatic to hesitate before telling the boss that I would accept, and since she was referring specifically to another report I had recently issued, I was able to repeat a common but always serviceable and self-deprecating aphorism: "so, no good deed goes unpunished, right?"
She also asked me if this was a "hidden literary talent" of mine. I was actually not amused by that question. The extent of my writing, at least in a professional context, is easily known of anyone who cares to look at my online internal CV (we post them on a company Web site), which includes two books and a number of articles and conference papers. "Hidden" talent"? I could have replied "how about 'clearly known but not by you'?" but I actually like my boss, so I made a much more agreeable repartee and we went on with our business.
Now the interesting thing to me is that when I write, and especially in French, I adopt a much more formal style than I would normally use in speech or in letters to friends and family. And I have found that this respect for stylistic levels (which are more pronounced in French than in English) is very important when it comes to getting the reader to respect the writer. Call it "style over substance" if you wish, but it is a way to command attention.
Truth be told, I am a royal pain when I review other people's writing. But then I give myself the same amount of grief. And some people who have been through the ordeal have actually come back later and asked for more, not because they are masochists, but because they found that they had learned something useful.
I've been asked, "how did you learn to write?" I can't really tell. I think I have simply synthesized everything I've heard and read over the years, from teachers and role models and good writers, and I was perhaps more prone to find it important than the average student. But I can't tell what form of brain wiring it takes to have this inclination. And I should hasten to say that not everyone was appreciative: a French professor in 10th grade annotated a piece of homework, which consisted of writing a sonnet, with something like "some people hide their lack of artistic capability behind linguistic pirouettes." He was right, but it may not have hurt me as much as he thought.
I wasn't sure how to take it, and our other two companions had a good chuckle over this statement, which made Mo spend the next ten minutes backpedaling furiously. Of course, we didn't cut him any slack. "I meant it in a good way: you write a lot!" he said, having a hard time convincing us, and probably even himself.
Last week, one of my bosses called me and said, "since you write well, I wonder if you could help me with a small task." The small task has since become a big project, but I knew that when I accepted to help her. Now, even if you're only asked to write the report for a working group, the writing doesn't just reflect the thinking — it influences it. If it is written at the very end of the project, it will only influence the thinking of the audience to whom the report is destined; but if it is written iteratively, and the working group members see some of the interim versions before they're completely done, these versions can help frame the priorities they give to different positions. That may not be exactly what Ben Franklin had meant, but there is a definite if subtle "power of the pen"!
Notwithstanding this clear opportunity to have more influence than was perhaps meant to be granted, it was diplomatic to hesitate before telling the boss that I would accept, and since she was referring specifically to another report I had recently issued, I was able to repeat a common but always serviceable and self-deprecating aphorism: "so, no good deed goes unpunished, right?"
She also asked me if this was a "hidden literary talent" of mine. I was actually not amused by that question. The extent of my writing, at least in a professional context, is easily known of anyone who cares to look at my online internal CV (we post them on a company Web site), which includes two books and a number of articles and conference papers. "Hidden" talent"? I could have replied "how about 'clearly known but not by you'?" but I actually like my boss, so I made a much more agreeable repartee and we went on with our business.
Now the interesting thing to me is that when I write, and especially in French, I adopt a much more formal style than I would normally use in speech or in letters to friends and family. And I have found that this respect for stylistic levels (which are more pronounced in French than in English) is very important when it comes to getting the reader to respect the writer. Call it "style over substance" if you wish, but it is a way to command attention.
Truth be told, I am a royal pain when I review other people's writing. But then I give myself the same amount of grief. And some people who have been through the ordeal have actually come back later and asked for more, not because they are masochists, but because they found that they had learned something useful.
I've been asked, "how did you learn to write?" I can't really tell. I think I have simply synthesized everything I've heard and read over the years, from teachers and role models and good writers, and I was perhaps more prone to find it important than the average student. But I can't tell what form of brain wiring it takes to have this inclination. And I should hasten to say that not everyone was appreciative: a French professor in 10th grade annotated a piece of homework, which consisted of writing a sonnet, with something like "some people hide their lack of artistic capability behind linguistic pirouettes." He was right, but it may not have hurt me as much as he thought.
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