Genocide

Dear readers,

The recent verdict of the International Court of Justice about Serbia raises, I believe, an interesting question. We read the word genocide quasi every day in the press, we hear it on radio and tv, but I am not too sure that people realise what it exactly means. So the rage of Bosnian demonstrators after the verdict might be very understandable, but not very well directed. The Court was asked to tell the (international) law, and it did it remarkably well. So the question is "What is exactly genocide?" What does it cover? Who can be responsible for genocide? And obviously who can be guilty of not preventing genocide, or worse, accomplicity?

It is not as an easy question as it may seems. Genocide is a very vast word, but it has a very precise legal meaning. According to this article, the only space left to debate is about the extent. Where does genocide begin and where does "simple" massacre ends? The legal definition speaks about partial or total destruction of a group because of its religion, ethnicity, etc. So there is a jurisprudence about what constitutes a part big enough to qualify for genocide. The Tribunal for ex-Yougoslavia stated that, to qualify, a group of victims must be significant in absolute numbers, relatively to the size of the total group but also relatively to the reach of the perpetrator. And of course, the organisation (system) and intent must be proven.

In the case of Sebrenica, genocide is clear: perpetrators systematically killed all male population (effectively preventing the reproduction of the targetted group part), the part was significant in absolute value (several thousands) and relative numbers (a region is a significant part of a country). There was a very systematic effort and organisation: the perpetrators organised the deception of the population to help their murderous effort, organising convoys that would lead some to their deaths and others to exile (after systematic rape).

But what the Court showed in yesterday's decision is that Serbia as a state did not organise such an act. Serbia certainly helped, or at least did not prevent the genocide in local Sebrenica. But Serbia as a state did not organise the genocide of all Muslim and ethnic Kroatian populations. Local Bosno-Serb authorities did. No one in Belgrad had theorized ethnic cleansing. It was Radovan Karadzic who did in Bosnia. Serbia aimed at dominance over ex-Yougoslavia, not extermination. Belgrade, in few words, was guilty of non-prevention and certainly of dictatorship. But not genocide... Serbia did little worse than China or the Arab League with Sudan (relating to Darfur) or than France with Rwanda.

That doesn't tell much about China and France, does it?

Looking for a job

Dear readers,

No politics today, no two cents philosophical comments. And no picture...

I am just too busy looking for a new job. So if you know a company looking for a good market analyst, or better, if your company needs a team manager in an intelligence section, I am the right man for the job. I have good project management experience, studied International Relations, can speak Dutch, French and English (and I can learn more if you want to...) and I have worked in the maritime, insurance and agro-food sectors. I don't mind working hard, travelling or even moving to a new country, as long as the pay is decent and the job interesting.

And yes, of course, I have a CV ready if you are interested. You can ask me by e-mail here. ;-)

Cat queen

From Marelles-blog

Just to let you enjoy my other darling... ;-)

Al Jazeera - Refugees

Dear readers,

I was reading this article on Al Jazeera in English today and I thought I'd like to share this pearl of hypocrisy with you. Not hypocrisy from the part of Al Jazeera, but from the part of certain members of the US administration. Basically, the USA have "discovered" that their operations in Iraq had caused, since 2003, the emigration of millions of Iraqis. And guess who is taking the brunt of these numbers? Iraq Arab neighbours, obviously, which are already deep into social, political and economic problems themselves... And who is paying for the influx, the logistical nightmare, the food and shelter? Well, the fleeing Iraqis themselves, of course, as well as the UNHCR obviously. Which means in the end you and me, as the UNHCR is funded (indirectly) by our taxes.

So of course, in the last four years, Iraqis and their families have desperately tried to leave Arab countries where they are not always welcome, to say the least, and fled to Europe, where they are ending "en masse", in our ports, stations, public social shelters, etc. And what has the US administration done about this? Well, last year they have accepted 202 of these refugees (mainly people working for them in Iraq and who were threatened) and they propose to take about 7000 this year. And they might spend some money in Arab lands to pay for the costs of some of the other ones. That's so nice and charitable... I am sure the Iraqis will appreciate the gift to its true value. So, here we go, let's destroy a country in the name of regime change, under false pretenses, plunge it deep into chaos, mismanage it and exploit its resources. And when people get so desperate that they take what they can of their belongings and families and run away, let's just give them a couple of dollars and tell them to stay around. And please, don't come and bother us in our Brave New World... We are way to busy enjoying our wealth, our SUV, our freedoms (ooops...) and our way of life!

Valentine

Dear readers,

Nothing special today. I am just enjoying a free day to work on my CV, search a new job, all this hassle. Well, yes, of course it is Valentine's day. Honestly, I have been guilty of forgetting it many times in the past, leading to horrible scenes with girlfriends.

Today is different. Today, I would like to wish a happy Valentine's day to someone I miss terribly. I don't even know if she reads me from time to time or not. So my dear, if you read this, know that distance is not always soothing everything and that time is not always a filter. They can also sharpen pain and enhance memories.

May the sun shine on your life and may fate or the circumstances (whichever we believe in the most) make us join again together.
With love...

After the parrots, a rabbit

By Logrus

Dear readers,

Only 24 hours after my previous post below, about mating parrots in winter, snow began to fall heavily over Zuid Holland, and pretty soon it was all covered in cold white. Animals, unlike the day before, were not really happy with it, such as this tiny rabbit under my office window, trying to get some food in a worker's garden. The contrast with the previous day was so big, it is a shame that I couldn't take pictures of the parrot so as to support my message.

But anyway, it doesn't change anything to the fact that the weather is really getting weird and that animals are the first ones to suffer...

Winter parrots mating

Dear readers,

There was last week a major conference in Paris about climate change and global warming. It is certainly an alarming situation that was described in the final report, but we all know the most catastrophic effects will be "enjoyed" by our children, most probably. This said, some effects can be felt already, according to some climatologists. Apparently, some of the very warm weather we had in the last years could be linked to our own activities. Quite scary, I believe. But some of these effects are actually quite nicer...

I had a good example today when I looked outside the window. May I remind you that this is Netherlands, and definitely winter time. Some years qgo, at the same date, canals were frozen and people were ice skating safely... Well, this year, forget about canal ice skating. There were a whole bunch of green parrots, in full mating parade, flying and tumbling all around the building. I know parrots can be adaptable birds, and we have had many of them in the Netherlands for some time, mainly in bigger cities. But this is not even a city centre and they were actually mating at the heart of winter!

They said it all, guys and gals, the weather is getting all crazzy. And birds too... ;-)

Good places in Rotterdam

Dear readers,

Some friend of mine asked me for advice about the places to visit in Rotterdam. As I didn't really know for sure what she meant, I answered broadly about places I liked. I guess I can share this personal knowledge (ha ha) with you, in case you don't live in the city of Erasmus and you want to come for a visit.

So here it is...
For restaurants, I would recommand:
- Fugu is good Japanese restaurant, not to pricey and with good decoration
- Met de Franse Slag is a good French cuisine with a Dutch chef
- Zinc is small French place in a lovely area along the Maas river
- Dyonisos is a good Greek restaurant in the centre
- Hotel New York is the really nice place on the river, in a restaured Hotel
For bars and pubs:
- Paddy Murphy's is the typical Irish pub with live music
- Consul is an alternative Dutch bar with really good sound tracks... ;-)
- Locus Publicus is the best place in town for beers of any kind
For clubs, unfortunately, I haven't been able to test many lately as my favorite place (Calypso) was closed… :-( But these have a decent reputation:
- I-max (near the Maritime Museum)
- Off Corso (in the centre)
If you are more in the cultural things, I would recommand a couple of very interesting museums:
- Architecture Institute
- Historical Museum
- Maritime Museum
- Nature Museum
- Kunsthal (modern Art Museum)
- Booijmans Museum (fine art museum)

Last but not least, visiting the port by boat (the famous Pancake Cruise or the more classic Spido) is a must.

Well, as we say in French, voilà... I hope you will enjoy my adoptive home town as much as I do.

Scaramella or not?

Dear readers,

If you remember, I previously had a quick shot at researching Mario Scaramella's activities in relation to the Litvinenko's case. It appears that the International Herald Tribune did a much better and complete job in an article published the 9th January 2007. I have to confess that I did not find it myself, but the link was indicated by copydude.

But anyway, the point is that the whole Scaramella case is, as I suspected, a big scam. Scaramella is obviously a crook and a pathological but interested liar. It also casts a new light on Silvio Berlusconi's methods in Italy, as well as on the CIA and more generally US involvement in Italian politics. Not that the CIA was apparently ever involved directly with the Napoletan so-called scientist, but some of his associates had links with CIA agents indicted in the abduction of an Islamic cleric in Italy. If you add this kind of link to what happened in the Niger yellowcake-Plame-CIA-Iraq story, you have I believe an interesting idea of how US intelligence services work...

Crossing the Dust

Dear readers,

I had the chance today of watching the movie Crossing the Dust, at the Rotterdam Film Festival. I strongly recommand it. The movie is borrowing subtly to both the war movie as well as the road movie genres. The Kurd producer and author, Shawkat Amin Korki, made a sensitive picture of the day of the fall of Saddam Hussein, through the eyes of two Peshmerga soldiers, on a food supplying mission, who meet a small crying Arabic boy on their road. One, remembering his own brother, pities the boy and tries to help him, while the other first refuses to intervene. Unfortunately, the boy's name is Saddam...

The movie is full of tenderness, humour and melancholy, but action and events maintain a very good rythm. The most awful aspects of war and of the (falling) regime of Saddam Hussein are of course present, but the tone remains quite light, to a certain point. There is a great poetry in the images as well as the dialogues. Unfortunately, the subtitles in English were of poor quality, but this does not break the atmosphere the least, so it remains acceptable. All actors play extremely well, and one should notice the excellent performance of the boy, played by Abdola Awayd. Everything basically sounds right, from the "blindness" of the American soldiers to the hypocrisy of the local imam. The film also avoids any propagandist effects and concentrates happily on the human story.

All in all, I enjoyed an excellent movie, and a compelling and very moving story. Both things I hadn't watch in a rather long time.

Obituary

Dear readers,

It is becoming a bit of a sad habit, unfortunately, but I have to report the death of another person I liked. As stated by many news sources and for instance this one, Jean-François Deniau died from cancer on Wednesday, aged 78. He was a politician in the noble meaning of this word, I believe, and France will miss guys of his stature and qualities. A diplomat and later member of the French National Assembly, affiliated to the UDF centrist party, he actually wrote most of the Rome treaty preamble, founding the European Community. He was also a man of actions as well as words, a great sailor and a courageous and honorable man. I remember with pleasure reading one of his books, Deux heures après minuit (Two Hours after Midnight), where he told about his discrete missions for the French diplomacy with many resistance movements around the world, fighting dictatures or simply for their rights.

On another rather sombre note (for myself), I have also to tell that I am unfortunately leaving my job. So for those who know me personaly, I will be looking for a good job, preferably in the Netherlands or in... Greece. All ideas and tips are welcome in any case.

About freedom 2

Dear readers,

Hrant Dink, a Turkish author and journalist of Armenian descent, was assassinated on Friday in Istanbul. Turkish police, obviously under heavy pressure both internally from the government and externally from Western countries, quickly caught the murderer, a young nationalist, with the murder weapon. He immediately confessed (if one can call confession its totally remorseless admission of it) and is still in custody. Everyone suspects he wasn't alone and got at least some support from Turkish extreme-right or nationalist groups. Let's hope that he will be punished like he deserved and that those who actually organised the murder go to jail for a very long time too.

But posting about what has been in the news for days is not really my point. I just wanted to remind German and French "ayatollahs" of History that Hrant Dink was the same guy who both openly accused Turkey of genocide against the Armenians in 1915 and vehemently opposed any criminalisation of negating this genocide. I wanted to praise again such an intellectual honesty, such a courage and eventually such a strong mind. A mind which is powerful enough not only to defend an idea publicly but also to actively support the fact that someone has the right to defend a completely contradictory idea, as despicable to us as this idea might be. Hrant Dink was killed by a kid because he was speaking his mind. Our German and French legislators are killing his spirit again and again... Shame on them.

Stormy times

Dear readers,

As some of you may have noticed, there was yesterday a massive storm over North-West Europe. This caused many trouble, deaths and accidents. It was the worse storm in the last 17 years, according to some, though some argue that the 92 one was bigger. I am not going to argue this, but I will only say that this one has annoyed me much more than the 92 one. In 92, I stayed safely home and nothing bad happened. This year, I was stranded in the cold in a Dutch station for 5 hours and a half (though I took two hours to get some dinner in town). There was simply no train to go back home, only 20 kilometers away. All train traffic was stopped in the whole Netherlands, and I had a nice time communicating with the locals to get some piece of information on what was going on. Needless to say, there was also no alternative mean of transport, as everyone had been advised by the government to stay inside until the worse was gone (that is around 9h30 PM). Of course, the government had just forgotten to inform me...

This said, I wasn't the worse off. Look for instance at what happened to these poor sods on the MSC Napoli (the ex CGM Normandie). They had quite a bad time abandoning ship in the Channel, in gales of strength 9 to 10 and waves of 6 meters and higher, which basically broke their hull near the engine room. However, you wonder who the hell left their ship go sail in such a weather if their hull was that weak... Especially with toxic cargo onboard. But, well, I am not working for a class society, so what do I know about these things?

Otherwise, this other event has got my attention today: China blasted off one of its old weather satellite, to test an anti-sat missile. Let's say that many people are quite pissed off, as this breaks years of tacit demilitarization of space (apart from the usual spy sats used by most advanced countries). But another reason for many (including you and me) to be unhappy about it is that it left about 8000 extra debris in lower orbite, which could be very dangerous, especially for other satellites and space missions. Basically, non content to pollute the rest of the world with carbon emmissions to fuel its gargatuesque growth, China is also polluting the space above our heads just for the thrill of being able to say: "we can do it!"

And to go back to pollution and weather, here is another article, from the BBC, on future climate forecast. This one is based on PC use, like the good old SETI program. As the results are flowing in, it does not look too good for us, but way worse for our kids: more floods, more storms (yes), more heatwaves, desertification and the like... Welcome in a hell that we did create ourselves! I am sure our children will thank us for it.

About freedom

Dear readers,

I had a couple of very pertinent messages from Mohamed about freedom. They were about the Nichane magazine issue in Morocco and the question of freedom of press and freedom of expression in general. But for some reason, the same issue is now being debated in the EU, due to the current German attempt at imposing a general European ban on all public display of extreme right symbols, negationist opinions and neo-nazis ideas. As was to be expected, the main opponents to this new directive proposal are Hindus. They are affraid (and rightfully so) that any display of swastikas would be banned, while this religious symbol of peace, they claim, was actually highjacked by the nazis. They make the point that the symbol is much older than its use by Hitler's party.

This brings me back to my messages about freedom and one of the purposes of this blog: I was trying to collect ideas on what should constitute a "right" political system and a just set of laws. In fact, freedom is much more than a simple right, a kind of item you put in a declaration and then that the State can more or less ignore in the name of other "more pressant" issues. Freedom, and especially freedom of expression, is what makes us different from animals. There is a main opposition on this topic between utilitarist philosophers like Bentham and humanists like Kant. But no one can really make a strong case anymore that humans are purely determined by their nature and social environment. Rousseau and Sartre have proven, once and for all, that both nature and culture shape humans and that they also have the possibility to make free choices, even purely "gratuitous acts". A gratuitous act is the absolute proof that freedom is what makes us humans.

This means that freedom should be the first thing that any kind of government should be protecting. This goes beyond the limits of religion or culture, social or mental setups. It also shows, in my opinion, that Churchill was wrong when he was saying that "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". Democracy is actually the political true expression of the humanist ideal. It is not just one regime amongst others, it is (in its perfect form) the ultimate philosophically and ethically just regime. Any tenants of political and cultural relativism should think about this a great deal before defending the idea that democracy is not right for other cultures than the Western one.

Thalyscope scoop

Dear readers,

I had the opportunity to take the Thalys a couple of times recently, from Rotterdam to Paris and back. For those readers unfamiliar with Northern France and the Benelux area, Thalys is the high speed train linking Paris to Amsterdam and Köln. Thalys is relatively fast and confortable, but that's not really my point today. Thalys (a joint venture between French SNCF, Belgian SNCB and Dutch NS train companies) has the pretention to offer to its customers a cultural grasp of the countries crossed by its red carriages. This comes under the form of a magazine, in four languages, covering different aspects such as hotels, gastronomy, museums, art exhibitions, fashion or travel advices, called the Thalyscope.

Well, unfortunately, if Thalyscope is a nice attempt at reaching a mulicultural public, here is the scoop: the quality of the content is, to say the least, limited. Here is an exemple drawn from last issue I read. Thalyscope was having an article on Rotterdam. I happen to know the city pretty well, as most of you may know. And here came my surprise: according to Thalyscope, Delftshaven is the only area of Rotterdam which was undamaged in the heavy bombing of the town during Second World War. And you can find there the Ooievaar, the only "bruin cafe" of Rotterdam... Despite issuing this shattering scoop, Thalyscope failed to mention the presence in the very same area of Pilgrim, the house where the Pilgrim Fathers gathered before embarking the Mayflower and a very nice cafe too.

So please, to the numerous inhabitants of Noord, Oude Noord, Kralingen, Hillegesberg, Noordeiland, Entrepots, Endrachtsplein or Scheepwartsquartier, your area has been either bombed to the ground by German or US warplanes or you have lost your status of Rotterdam "burgers"! No? Well, at least that's what Thalyscope implies... And it is a "cultural" publication. And of course, regular customers of Melief Bender, Cafe Timmer, Concordia, Big Ben Cafe or 't Fust, please remember that you are not enjoying the particular atmosphere of Dutch traditional brown cafes but of vulgar lame bars. Here are my illusions going...

EUobserver - US lobby vs. EU emissions law

Dear readers,

I will never stop being amazed, I guess, by the arrogance of some US administrations (and this regardless of who is seating at the White House or having the majority in the Congres). Yesterday again, another example was reported by the EU observer. The US administration is again trying to tweak things its own protectionist way in the field of air transport. Contrarily to what many people might think, the USA are not at all a free trade country (except for others... of course). There are many protectionist tarifs and laws, in many sectors, from steel production to shipping, including infamous regulations on air transport not only in US skies but also to and from them.

These laws are mainly consisting in a scheme to collect all kinds of personal data on passengers (even ones transiting through the US airports but not stopping there), in complete violation of basic civil rights. This was forcedly imposed on European Union companies, under the threat to simply ban them from Transatlantic flights. The EU, under heavy pressure, first balked, before agreeing to the scheme. It is not the decision it should be the proudest of. The Council had to force it upon the European Parliament and, understandably, there was a nasty row in the European Court of Justice. Another set of unfair laws concerning the American airspace is that companies who want to have internal flights in the US must have at least 75% of their shares into US hands, as well as a majority of their board controlled by US citizens. For this reason, the EU has tried for years to negotiate an open skies agreement. This has never worked, simply because the US administrations have blocked all proposals, without ever making any opening.

Now, the EU is willing to reduce gas emissions by airlines and plane traffic. This will concern flights inside the EU but also (logically) flights from and to the EU. The system will be an emission rights stock exchange, just like the one for CO2 already existing under the Kyoto treaty. Nothing extremely constraining, but already a major positive step for the environment and against global warming. Air traffic is indeed (like auto traffic) one of the top three polluters in the world. Well, as was to be expected (the US already blocked a similar noise reduction scheme), the US administration is using all kind of pressure means, including threats, to block such a legislation to be passed in the EU. One of these threats would be to block completely the already failing negotiation on the Open Skies Treaty.

In one word, non content of polluting their own country and gassing the planet, not happy enough in ignoring global warming issues, the USA also want to allow their weakened airline companies to gas our skies, while EU companies would still be fobidden to fly US internal airspace. Speak about fair trade?

Al Jazeera - Lebanon opposition protests tax

Dear readers,

I noticed a piece of news on Lebanon on Al Jazeera in English (no, I still can't speak or read Arabic, sorry). Unfortunately, as too often, it wasn't mentionned in most Western media. The Lebanese opposition (composed of mostly Hezbollah, Amal and some smaller pro-Syrian parties) has decided to support the union protests against the government's tax plan. They have staged new demonstrations and marches, on top of the permanent sit in they have in front of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's offices. The government has of course denounced it as an attitude aimed at breaking its efforts to save the Lebanese economy and its fight against corruption, ultimately weakening the country to benefit Syria. The opposition claims the government is overtaxing the people. Fair fight, I'd say, and I would even add that these are pretty mild accusation in a Lebanon more used to exchanges of bullets than of political debates. So, no news here?

Well, maybe not. Isn't there some bit of hope here? After all, and unless I am terribly mistaken, nobody has been killed in this process yet. Would it be that both the government and the opposition have begun to behave as in a normal democratic country? That is probably too much wishfull thinking from my part. But, fair enough, since the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, Lebanon is living a kind of political stand off. And this may have forced some of the parties opposed in this conflict to consider that the blood spilled in the process is not after all worth the results. And maybe they are beginning to consider the value of democracy. Which is after all nothing else than a transfer of the physical fight in a more civilized way...

BBC - OECD warns about lack of structural changes

Dear readers,

According to the BBC and Le Monde the OECD has warned the member states of the Eurozone about their economic policies. Despite timid attempts, such as the recent changes in Germany, the countries which adopted the euro as a common currency are relying too much on economic integration and external factors for their economies. Practically none of them took the political risk of strong structural reforms in the fields where the unbalance with the USA and the other developped countries is the biggest: the job markets and innovation policies. Europe as a monetary union has succeeded in fighting inflation, despite odds such as the tremendous increase of commodity as well as energy prices. This was thanks to the orthodoxy of its Central Bank. But it has been poorly accepted by member states and even worse by some of the populations, especially in France, a key member of the Eurozone.

Most French people, even with a relatively higher social standing, have a very poor understanding of basic economic issues (even worse, I'd say, than in most other countries). This is due to educational problems, but also to the media which are not really doing a good job in explaining these topics to the public opinions. And unfortunately, politicians are not doing any better. Just after the OECD comments, Jacques Chirac made a speech in which he detailed what the economic problems in France where caused by. And the "song" was the same as usual: it is not the French government's mistake (with its heavy and unadequate social and economic policies), nor the weakness of French research and development (with its totally unefficient national research centre, the CNRS), it is the Euopean Central Bank ! This amazes me. Chirac is not a great economist, but he did study a bit, and even him should know what the ECB did to support the Eurozone. But no, rather than taking his responsibilities (something he has only been able to do once so far, during the Iraqi crisis), he preferred to blame the "too strict ECB monetary policy". Basically, he is saying: "who cares about inflation, let's people have jobs even if their salaries can't support them in any way..."

Like the first years of socialist government and massive inflation, between 1981 and 1986, haven't taught the French anything...

Merry Christmas to all...

Dear readers,

In this day of Christian festivities but very secular commercial frenzy, as well as pagan remembrance, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. It is a good milestone for this blog, as it is the first Christmas on this platform (Blogger). In this day, I would like to wish you all many good things.

First, I wish to everyone of you some wisdom. In our times of frantic flows of information, blur of images and multiple channels of communication, this essential quality, praised by the Ancient Greeks as well as modern philosophers, is probably one we need the most. Secondly, I wish you love. Love is no guarantee of hapinness, as I made myself the bitter experience, but it can help greatly. It soothes our pains and gives us motivation, this tiny bit of extra good will to make ourselves better, not for us alone but for someone else. Third, I wish you peace. I know how corny this may sound in our times of war and terrorism, but the peace I mean is also an inner one. It is this peace of mind that may help us to use our wisdom, hopefully, to love our kind even when they don't like us. It is a peace of the soul, if such a thing exists, of the spirit anyway, which can maybe contaminate others through us to make this world a better place. Because, you'd better believe me, it ain't any other, despite what false prophets might tell you in order to get your coins and your obedience.

On another note, I'd like to come bak on some of the items I commented here this year and that come back today by some irony of fate. Mario Scaramella, the man involved in the story around this poisonned Russian spy was indicted and jailed in Intaly yesterday in a (not so) completely different affair. I had mentionned both in this post.

Lebanese parties failed to reach an agreement under the lead of Amr Mussa, the Arab League general secretary. This is unfortunate for all Lebanese. After this sad news, Abu Jaafar posted on Blacksmith of Lebanon describing the ambiance inside the tent demonstration in Beirut and calling the Siniora government "blind". I understand his point of view, but I can only repeat what I said before on this topic. I am the first to recognize that the Lebanese Constitution is not helping in the present predicament the country finds itself in, but it exists anyway and what the opposition proposes is nothing else than a coup. It would be anti-democratic, unconstitutionnal and most of all simply playing the game of an external power (Syria) against the good of the country. As for the feelings of the Southern villagers present there and which would give them legitimacy, I would simply answer these two things: first it should give shame, not pride, to Hizbullah which provoked their pain by capturing Israeli soldiers and bombing Israeli villages. It is no excuse for the bloodbath Israel unleashed, but it is certainly not honorable for the pro-Syrians. Second point, the Lebanese government is not blind to the will of the people, it refuses to cede to a street protest. There is a huge difference there. And it has paid the blood price too, as it seems to me, when so many anti-Syrian Lebanese, including a Minister, have been assassinated in the last months. The current demonstration goal being to avoid a fair enquiry into these crimes, I can only praise the courage of the surviving Ministers in their noble stand against the crowd.

This said, I would like to wish you all again a peaceful Christmas time... And see you all soon in the bloggosphere! Or, who knows, maybe for real?

Japanese drawing culture

Dear readers,

As some of you might know, I am a huge fan of Japanese culture, especially pictural. Most people have at least heard of modern Japanese mangas, these cheap but often inspired comics, sometimes filmed. Many also know about the famous Japanese estamps, pure wonders of the two dimensional art of rending an idea on paper. Fewer have heard of the art of image books. Luckily for us, the New-York Public Library has a wonderful exhibition on this topic and Slate had an exclusive authorisation to reproduce some of these masterpieces... I can only encourage you to have a look, as it is really enlightning, and if you have the luck to live in New-York, don't hesitate and run to visit the place...

As I couldn't, for obvious copyright reasons, give you an idea of the images exposed, I preferred to show you an example from another piece of art of the same type. This one's copyright is mine, so if you want to use it, please ask me first. Thanks in advance.