European natality

I found this chart yesterday :

Click to enlarge slightly

At times, I fail to see something that's stuck on my big fat nose. Yesterday, when I first posted this data, I didn't read what's clearly written down at the bottom of the chart. The percentages indicate the proportion of women without kids. In other words, 25 % of German women (at the top) are without children, whereas only 8 % of Bulgarian women are in that predicament. Male readers might notice that, if they're looking for an average European wife with an average tendency to be a mother, there's no better place to find her than in my favorite Old World nation. To help you find that place, here's a hint: a famous symbol of that people is a female whose upper-underwear is missing. And her name is Marianne.

In at least one town hall of our so-called Hexagone,

a lovely Marianne has been out in the sunshine.

Pour être un post-philosophe ?

J’avoue d’office que ma question et ma réponse sont totalement truquées en ce sens que je vais nommer des qualités particulières que je possède personnellement en partie supposée être suffisante. Il y a également des réponses pour lesquelles je me rends compte que je tire un peu vers moi la couverture. Je les laisse néanmoins car elles sont pertinentes. Je dis pourtant qu’elles pourraient être remplacées par des réponses légèrement différentes.

• Mieux vaut avoir une petite culture en philosophie conventionnelle, rien que pour éviter d’être totalement un philistin qui ignore même la terminologie d’Aristote et de tous ceux qui l'ont suivis.

• Etre au courant des discussions ordinaires sur le “free will” (libre arbitre).

• Pouvoir s’exprimer an anglais. Curieusement, je considère que la langue allemande n’ajoute rien d’obligatoire aux qualités du candidat. C’est une manière de dire que, si je pensais qu’il fallait posséder l’allemand pour être post-philosophe, j’aurais fait un effort pour l’apprendre.

• Etre connaisseur de Rilke et admirateur de Malte Laurids Brigge.

• Il faudrait surtout avoir quelques notions de base sur la physique quantique.

• Savoir un peu ce qu’est l’ADN.

• Connaître Richard Dawkins et l’athéisme.

• Il faudrait connaître assez bien la programmation d’ordinateurs et les challenges de ce qu’on appelle parfois l’intelligence artificielle.

• Il faudrait pouvoir taper correctement sur un ordinateur. Le contenu de ce que je propose pourrait difficilement être transmis par quelqu’un qui se sert uniquement du texto sur un iPad. D’ailleurs, il ne m’est jamais de ma vie arrivé de tenter une telle opération. Je reste incroyablement vieux-style !

Il y a sans doute des fautes dans mes propositions. Mais, même s’il n’y avait qu’un gramme de sérieux, sans parler de vérité, on devrait admettre que la plupart des candidats dits « intellectuels » se situent à une distance d’années-lumière.

Fluttering butterflies

When we look at the world, chance often troubles us. The submarines ordered recently by my native land will be designed and built by the French DCNS shipyard at Cherbourg, currently up for sale. A potential purchaser is the Italian Fincantieri, who built the Costa Concordia.

For readers (like me) who don’t believe in ghosts, that association means absolutely nothing. The giant Italian cruise ship might have had an inspiring destiny if only it hadn’t been captained on the evening of Friday 13 January 2012 by a randy idiot who seemed to view himself as God’s Gift to Women. But it might be creepy for a naval officer who believes in ghosts (supposing that such men are still recruited) to fall asleep in a submarine bunk designed by the same bed-builder who created the fun-place for Schettino and his blonde playmate.

De Jacques Monod à la Costa Concordia

J’ai décidé de mentionner Monod comme j’aurais pu évoquer d’autres grands penseurs scientifiques depuis l’époque des découvertes de la physique quantique et de l’ADN. Et j’ai parlé du désastreux fait divers de l’ile de Giglio tout comme j’aurais pu faire appel à n’importe quelle actualité qui émerge des battements des ailes d’un papillon. Pourquoi s’étonner par ailleurs des ressemblances entre l’actrice Sveva Alviti et Dalida plutôt que celles entre le Costa Concordia et le Titanic ?

Pourquoi donner le beau rôle de salaud à Francesco Schettino en particulier, quand on aurait pu choisir n’importe meutrier qui agit ainsi pour une raison indéniable, à savoir : C’est dans ses gènes. Rien à faire. Il est né comme ça.

Je trouve plus noble de parler des victimes, qu’elles soient de la fiction ou de la terrible réalité.

Mylène et Mickaël
Blanche et noir,
leurs peaux seraient un hasard sans importance,
leur amour une nécessité éternelle, aussi forte que la vie.

Ce qui me frappe aujourd’hui dans le cas du Prix Nobel, c’est son choix du titre Le Hasard et la Nécessité. Tout est dit. Le hasard, c’est le papillon. La nécessité, c’est la science et la rigueur de l'ADN. Ces deux forces mettent le capitaine et son amante ensemble au moment où le paquebot passe entre Scylla et Charybdis. Elles font du jeune couple des sacrificiés, puis elles sauvent la tête de l'abject capitaine italien.

Saint Billy's Day

If I have any Down Under Antipodes readers left (which is rather unlikely), they might be surprised to hear me say—unless they knew so already—that January 10 is the feast day of my patron saint, known in French as Guillaume, and in German as Wilhelm.

Now, please don't expect me to say anything about this fellow... or rather these fellows, because there's a big group of Bills, spread out over a few centuries. To be honest, I don't have the faintest idea of what a William has to do to become recognized as a potential saint. As far as I'm concerned, nobody has ever sent me an email asking me to contribute funds to sponsors who would back me up in a bid to become a saint. So, I have no information on such subtle matters. Be that as it may, it goes without saying—but it's better said than left in saintly silence—that I would instantly publish a blog post if ever I happened to be elected to the heavenly throng. Being a saint doesn't mean you have to remain as quiet as a stone statue about it.

World’s most brilliant and efficient researchers and writers work for Wikipedia

#WikiPriests

This morning, I noticed news of the assassination yesterday of Jean-Louis Turquin, who had himself been considered by certain observers as the assassin of his son. Although it’s a mysterious and complex affair, it doesn’t interest me at all. However this morning’s news provides me with a pretext to examine something that does interest me greatly: the way in which Wikipedia handles such events.

Not surprisingly, the corresponding article ends with a sentence that mentions yesterday's assassination. This rapidity suggests that Wikipedia writers get to work in the minutes that follow a relevant news events. The organization and speed of Wikipedia people are impressive, and their reporting is clear and precise. I simply don’t know how they get their act together. They’re surely devoted to Wikipedia in the way a priest might be devoted to the Church. But I’m obliged to say that I know nothing whatsoever about such WikiPriests.

Talents sportifs hérités

Dans la lignée Noah, il y a eu trois générations de grands sportifs, chacune dans une discipline différente.

Zacharie, Yannick et Joakim Noah réunis en septembre 2011. (L'Equipe)

Le patriarche Zacharie Noah, 79, vient de mourir à Yaoundé, Cameroun.

J’ai eu une occasion inattendue de rencontrer Yannick Noah à Perth en 1985 à l’occasion d’un diner chez un Français, son ami d’école, qui venait d'être nommé à la tête de l’Alliance Française. Je connaissais bien cette personne car j’avais contacté l’Alliance tout de suite après mon arrivée à Fremantle.

J’ai eu l’occasion de constater, ce soir-là, que Yannick n’avait pas le comportement rigoureux d’un sportif de haut niveau qui évitait complètement de boire et de fumer. Ses capacités tennistiques n’étaient pas uniquement la conséquence d’un mode de vie spartiate. Elles étaient dans les gènes hérités du son père.

Des amis Facebook ne sont pas forcément de vrais amis

J'aurais pensé qu'on n'avait pas besoin de faire appel à la justice en France pour clarifier une telle question. Nous avons beaucoup d'affaires plus sérieuses à régler.

Hélas, il a suffi qu'un plaignant récuse un certain candidat de jury pour que cette question soit amenée devant un tribunal. Quelle perte d'énergie ridicule !

Some of my best friends used to be kids

Even, in certain cases, bright kids. Now I don't know if it's the weather, or whatever... but I find it harder and harder to met up with smart humans. At times, over the last few months, I've had the impression that some kind of a plague has swept through my old territories and infected some of my favorite watering holes. Only today, for example, I read in the press that a flu attack has wiped out 13 residents of a home for old folk in Lyon. It appears that the rate of vaccination in this establishment was 38%, but we'll have to await the results of an inquiry to see if some of those who died were in fact vaccinated. I hope that our future president François Fillon, who brought the Internet to France, will introduce a law that makes it obligatory for old-timers such as me to be vaccinated against the flu virus. Before that happens, I must remember to ask a local priest whether I'm maybe a public danger when I walk around in the super-market with my body full of flu-vaccine shit. Maybe they should ban me.

Once upon a time, I used to get all excited and full of fury whenever I detected cases of blatant stupidity in society. These days, I simple look the other way. If I were to snarl at every idiot I run into, more and more people would consider me (as many do already) as a mad dog, and try to shoot me. Such is fucking life. A fucking tragedy, whichever way you look at it. If God existed (which, of course, he doesn't), then he would have to be truly ashamed of his bull-shit creation.

Moment of intense joy

Since yesterday evening, my house has been
invaded by a continuous mysterious piercing sound.
I searched its causes everywhere, without success.
This morning, I discovered that the disturbing sound
came from a faulty smoke and CO detector.
So, I took it outside and left it on a table.
This afternoon, in the cold, the strident sound
went into action once again.
Enough was enough.
I finally stopped the sound. Forever.

Click to enlarge slightly

Not since my first kiss have I felt so elated!

Human madness disgusts me

7 janvier 2015

On that terrible day, the madness of a mob of dirty brain-washed buggers made an ugly inaugural appearance. The day will surely come
when all the mad fellows will have finally faded away into dust.
Between now and then, our world will suffer unbearably.

Fillon invented the wheel, too

Sliced bread, almost certainly.

Run, Turing, Run!

Maybe Forrest Gump invented the principles of
modern computing and artificial intelligence...

Does the British PM know the way out ?

Theresa May is like a lady in a dark cinema who’s looking for the toilets. She knows they’re there, somewhere or other, and she needs to reach them as soon as possible, but there’s not enough light for her to find the way.

Born in Bournemouth in Dorset, the lady is accustomed to foggy conditions. The Brexit, however, is foggier by far than anything she’d ever encountered. Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain's ambassador to Brussels, even chose the lady’s birthplace to announce his resignation… which wasn’t a particularly British act. Before taking French leave, the not-very-diplomatic diplomat had been ungracious enough to inform 10 Downing Street that finding the way out of Europe in the dark might even take ten years. Goodness Gracious, that’s a long wait in the pea soup for a pee!

Former French president intercepted by a police officer

On 31 December 2016, at Saint-Tropez, the ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy ran into trouble with a local policeman. In a one-way street, the said Sarkozy was allegedly traveling in the wrong direction, which could have resulted in an accident if ever an old person or children (or anybody at all, for that matter) had happened to attempt to cross the street. The alleged culprit halted and declined his identity. It is not known whether he made any statement or apology to the police officer concerning his dangerous act. In any case, the police officer reveals that he did not encounter any kind of problem with the alleged culprit, who apparently made no attempt to behave in an incorrect manner with the representative of the law. When asked by the police officer to descend from his bicycle, the alleged offender did so, and obeyed the police officer’s suggestion of continuing his journey on foot, wheeling the bicycle alongside him. The police officer has further revealed that neither he nor the alleged culprit thought it necessary to draw attention to the fact that the alleged culprit had once occupied a special post in France. In other words, the alleged culprit received no exceptional treatment. It appears that the affair was brought to an acceptable conclusion in as rapid and harmonious a manner as possible.

Trump pourrait être du vent

Donald Trump dit tellement de conneries que l’on se demande si lui aussi ne serait pas une sorte de connerie permanente. Il a suggéré que le changement climatique était une plaisanterie chinoise qu’il serait obligé d'anéantir. Il a promis même de restaurer l’industrie du charbon. Trop de Trompe, c’est trop. Tellement de conneries qu'il finit par se fatiguer.

Avant Noël, quand les “promesses” de Trump commençaient à se faire oublier un peu, le gouvernement fédéral à proposé des enchères sur une parcelle du fond de la mer aux alentours de l’Etat de New York, comme un site potentiel d’un vaste parc d’éoliens.

Est-ce que la morosité engendrée par Trump allait tuer cette offre ? Pas du tout. L’intérêt était tellement énorme que les enchères ont grimpé à 33 tours, et nécessité l’ouverture d’une seconde journée de business. Finalement, le gagnant a offert 42 millions de dollars au Trésor fédéral. Ça fait deux fois ce qui a été obtenu au mois d’août pour l’achat de sites pétroliers dans la Golfe de Mexique.

Disturbing days of depression for females

The French journalist Audrey Vaugrente has published an interesting article, HERE, on the genetic origins of troubles associated with menstruation. No less than 13 genes are responsible for the hormonal variations that give rise to these problems. In other words, a woman is born with these monthly disturbances? Like blue eyes, they're congenital. Unlike an affliction such as influenza, these troubles were never simply "picked up"... and they can never be cured.

For a male, it’s obviously impossible to understand these problems, which bear names such as anxiety, sadness and irritability. So, our only role consists of sympathizing—as best we can—with our sisters, wives, mothers and daughters. A study on this genetic manifestation has been published in the scientific journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Titanic

Apparently the good ship Titanic was severely damaged by a fire even before it was launched. And it was this fire damage, rather than an iceberg, that led to the catastrophe. Click HERE to read an article on this new theory.

STX France to be purchased by the Italian company Fincantieri?

The Saint-Nazaire shipyards are likely to be purchased by an Italian company, Fincantieri, whose headquarters are based in Trieste. The French government, holding 34% of STX France, is relieved to find that no Asian buyer clinched the deal.

Fincantieri, like STX France, handles both civilian and naval contracts. The STX France subsidiary named DCNS, specializing in military contracts, recently sold submarines to Australia.

Homme politique égomaniaque

Un homme politique peut être tellement égomaniaque qu’il imagine automatiquement que tout ami est forcément, non seulement un grand admirateur, mais un collaborateur.

Guy Bedos tient la main d'Arnaud Montebourg,
le 11 décembre 2016, à Alger (Algérie).
(photo RYAD KRAMDI / AFP)

Il a suffi qu’Arnaud Montebourg constate la grande amitié de Guy Bedos pour qu’il annonce publiquement que ce dernier serait l’un des présidents de sont comité de soutien. L’humoriste, voyant cette déclaration, a décliné immédiatement l’offre.

DERNIERES NOUVELLES :  Guy Bedos aurait plus ou moins accepté une partie de l'offre de son ami. On aura sûrement bientôt l'occasion d'observer la profondeur de cette amitié.

Future world of Genetic Inheritance

Let me call it the GI-world. Humanity is leaving an era in which the letters “G.I.” generally evoked soldiers of the United States Army and airmen of the United States Army Air Forces. We are now moving slowly but surely into a new era in which those same two letters are likely to be used to designate Genetic Inheritance: that’s to say, the part of human behavior that is derived more from Nature than from Nurture. The stuff that happened to be written already on the slate when we were born.

Observers often think it would be nice to believe that our slates are blank at the moment of our birth, and that children then meet up with countless real-world experiences enabling them to extend and enrich the writing on their personal slates. This blank-slate vision might be partly valid, but researchers discovered cases of identical twins, brought up in worlds apart, who adopted highly similar behaviors, suggesting that fragments of their DNA code were apparently duplicated.

Commonsense often makes us imagine that such afflictions as alcoholism or insanity might indeed be present “in the family”, meaning that the offspring of afflicted ancestors might indeed have an inherited tendency to fall into drinking or madness. While it’s extremely difficult to prove that this might be true, many observers feel that human behavior can be the outcome of a subtle mixture of Nature and Nurture. It’s possibly what a French humorist referred to as Nightingale Pastry. The stuffing is obtained by mixing together nightingale meat and horse meat in equal proportions: the flesh of one nightingale mixed with the flesh of one horse. In the Nature versus Nurture context, it’s still hard to determine whether the code already present on the slate was a huge horse or rather a tiny nightingale. No doubt a bit of both.

I believe personally that, in the future GI-world, a new class of investigators will examine simultaneously both the horse and the nightingale. For example, if both a mother and her daughter manifest symptoms of the kind designated as bipolar disease, then they might envisage the possibility that the daughter inherited this disorder from her mother. In order to form an opinion on this question, other individuals on the patient’s genealogical tree might be brought into the picture. Have comparable behavioral characteristics been observed at several places on the family tree ?

DNA-based investigations have revolutionized many aspects of our existence. At the modest level of my family-history research, a couple of trivial Y-chromosome tests enabled me to confirm the identity of one of my paternal great-grandfathers: Chromosomes reveal the truth.

Ernest Skyvington [1891-1985] between his parents in London. My grandfather could never tell me what had happened to his father.

Sooner or later, in tomorrow’s GI-world, whenever we’re confronted with striking cases of weird behavior inside the family, observers will not be unduly surprised if observers decide to browse through both genealogical and biological data of all kinds. Pluridisciplinary research of that kid will appear to observers as no less unusual than, say, conventional psychoanalysis or psychotherapeutics.

Pause-pipi long-courrier

Les toilettes d’un avion reliant New York à Paris étaient bloquées, faisant en sorte que les passagers, eux aussi, étaient rapidement bloqués. Un commandant de bord imaginatif aurait pu suggérer que tout passager ayant une envie persistante se munisse, par exemple, de l’équivalent moderne d’un pot de chambre. Par exemple, une bouteille en plastique. Au lieu de ça, l'avion a atterri à Shannon… pour une pause-pipi de luxe qui mérite d’entrer dans le livre des records.

Vol solaire

L’appareil Solar Impulse 2 a achevé son tour du monde
grâce uniquement à l’énergie solaire.
Cette photo de l’avion au-dessus des pyramides
de Gizeh a été prise le 13 juillet 2016.

Planète Mars

Cette photo de la surface de la planète Mars,

aux contreforts du mont Sharp, a été prise par

un robot nommé Curiosity, le 10 septembre 2016.

L'homme de l'année sur vélo

le merveilleux Peter Sagan

Black is black

The US astronomer Vera Rubin [1928-2016], mother of dark matter, died on Xmas Day. In spite of that amazing discovery, Stockholm never thought that this great lady deserved a Nobel.

Prince Charles in uniform

Where’s the war? Apparently he was taking part in training operations for urban conflicts… but I don’t know the identity of the alleged enemies. Maybe, one of these days, Charles will inform us. In any case, it appears—thank God—that His Highness was not wounded.

Sealed and delivered

On Boxing Day, the owner of a Toyota in the Launceston (Tasmania) suburb of Newstead woke up to find a huge fur seal of 200 kg lodged on the bonnet.

Parks and Wildlife staff threw a net over the creature,

and tranquillized it by means of a veterinary product.

The seal slipped quickly into DreamLand.

Traces of the seal’s visit remained visible on the automobile.

The creature was finally placed on a trailer.

The seal was then driven to a beach and released.
All's well that ends well.
Bravo to the seal-handlers !

Autour du monde en moins de 50 jours

Le navigateur Thomas Coville vient de gagner , à bord du trimaran Sodebo Ultim’, la course en solitaire autour du monde.

   Voici la biographie hallucinante de Coville :

                         • 7 tours du monde dont 3 en solitaire
                         • 9 passages du Cap Horn et plus de 15 transatlantiques
                         • 7 records en solitaire et 4 en équipage.
                         • 4 Route du Rhum dont 1 victoire en monocoque (1998)
                         • 2 Route du Rhum podiums en trimaran (2006 et 2010)
                         • Détenteur du record des 24 heures en juin 2016
                         • Vainqueur de la Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012
                         • Détenteur du Trophée Jules Vernes 1997 et 2010
                         • Deuxième de La Transat Anglaise 2004
                         • Vainqueur de la Transat Jacques Vabre 1998
                         • Deuxième de la Mini Transat 1997

Besoin d’un nouvel appareil ancien

Il y a quelques semaines, si l’on m’avait demandé de quoi j’avais besoin, j’aurais dit immédiatement « De rien du tout ! », ni de gadget ni de quoi que ce soit. J’étais un homme comblé. Un point, c’est tout. Eh bien non. Il me manquait une nouvelle version d’un appareil aussi ancien que les voyages du XVIIIe siècle aux Antipodes. J’ai besoin d’un baromètre.

Et pourquoi donc ? Aurais-je décidé de décorer Gamone pour donner l'impression que je navigue sur un grand bateau comme l'Exodus de mon roman All the Earth is Mine ? Non, la réponse ne concerne que mon humble maison choranchoise. Plus précisément, de mon poêle fonte de chauffage Invicta Bradford qui brûle du bois.

Hélas, avant-hier, rien à faire : j'étais incapable d'allumer ce poêle. Je ne comprenais pas du tout quel était le problème, car mon bois était sec et j'avais tout ce qu'il fallait pour faire l'allumage. Finalement, je me suis dit que j'allais le laisser tomber. Il y avait sûrement un blocage dans la sortie de fumée. Je me suis donc tournée vers mon système de secours : l'ancienne chéminée dont je me servais pour faire des flambées avant mon installation du poêle. J'ai pu donc passer une soirée agréable en regardant la télévision, juste à côté de la chéminée.

Puis, Tineke m'a dit au téléphone : « Tu sais, William, l'autre jour nous avons aperçu un ciel lugubre bizarre au-dessus de Pont-en-Royans. On s'est dit qu'il y avait certainement une énorme zone de basse pression sur Gamone. »

Voilà donc l'explication. Et voilà pourquoi j'ai besoin d'un baromètre à Gamone, pour mieux comprendre le temps qu'il fait.

Naming individuals can be stupid

In my land of birth, Australia, an incredible problem has always existed. People often don't have the courage to use officially-given names. They replace them by shortened versions or colloquial names. And this trivial refusal to use correct names has ended up undermining whatever's left of everyday culture Down Under. I imagine that most outsiders are unaware of this ridiculous problem, which has attained astronomical proportions. Many silly terms substituted for given names are absurd, and have weak linguistic links to the original names, or maybe none at all. Here are several examples:

William > "Bill"

Margaret > "Peggy"

Richard > "Dick"

Susan > "Sue"

James > "Jim"

Catherine > "Kitty"

Robert > "Bob"

Dorothy > "Dot"

Thomas > "Tom"

Michael > "Mick"

This Aussie naming phenomenon has little to do with endearment or brevity. It's simply a silly habit that can neither be explained nor shaken off. I'm unaware of any academic thesis in Australian sociology that has traced the history and consequences of this ridiculous phenomenon. Australians themselves are generally so accustomed to this national absurdity that they rarely even think of it. It's what being an Aussie is all about. You either like it, ignore it or you leave.

This ridiculous habit in Australian society has annoying consequences. For example, some former friends in Australia get annoyed when I tell them that my official name has always been William Skyvington. They're so accustomed to antiquated nicknames from my school years that, when I point out that they should cease to call me "Bill" or "Billy", they see me as a snob. Some even get upset, and go out of their way to tell me that I'm an asshole. The most amazingly ridiculous case took place a few days ago, quite by chance. I had been in constant contact for many months with an Australian female school-friend named "Jan" (no doubt an abbreviation for Janet). At one stage, I happened to be repeating my negative opinions about the weak state of Australian journalism. My quite objective statements surely offended the lady, and she wanted to let me know that I'd hurt her. And how did she get her message across to me? Believe it or not, she suddenly decided spontaneously—for the first time since the start of our e-mail communications, many months ago—to drop my William name and address me as... "Bill". Who was the true dumb asshole? Me or her? I'll let you decide.

George Michael has let the Sun go down on Xmas Day

Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου

1963-2016

famous duo with Elton John

Fox went out on a chilly Chernobyl night

@AP_Images Deserted town of Pripyat,

some 3 kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear plant

in #Ukraine, 22 December 2016.

Irish child sings a moving Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen's celebrated hymn gets better and better.
The singer is Kayla Rogers, 10, of Donaghadee (Northern Ireland).

 Kayla's interpretation [HERE] is simply breathtaking.

Her school, Killard House [HERE], is for children with deficiencies.
Kayla has run into problems of concentration on her work, and
her concert performance was intended as a therapeutic activity.

Man of the Year — my vote

Trop de mythes

Des parents intelligents éviteraient de raconter des conneries sur le Père Noël.

Ils ne diraient pas non plus des mensonges sur Dieu, Jésus et Compagnie. La Terre n’arrêterait pas pour autant de tourner…

Vaccin contre Ebola

L’Organisation mondial de la santé (OMS) vient d’annoncer la création d’un vaccin « jusqu’à 100 % efficace » contre Ebola : un virus qui, depuis 1976, a un taux de mortalité chez l'humain de 25 % à 90 %. Le nom du vaccin : rVSV-ZEBOV.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, “radical” was a lovely word

Up until I left Australia at the age of 21, “radical” was in my mind an objective term designating some kind of root, widely employed in pure mathematics, chemistry, music, grammar, political science and the philosophy of empiricism.

Bertrand Russell

• [mathematics] Of the root of a number or quantity.

• [chemistry] Group of atoms behaving as a unit in compounds.

• [music] Belonging to the root of a chord.

• [grammar] Root or base form of a word.

• [politics] Advocate of thorough or total political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims.

• [empiricism] Theory that ultimate reality consists of pure experience.

These days, I'm sickened whenever I hear philistines linking this lovely word to barbarian hatred and crime.

I'm moving from discovery to discovery

One of my sisters once said that she recalled me, coming home to Grafton from the start of my new life as a university student, talking about my encounter with theories of Sigmund Freud. That sounded like an exaggeration on the part of my sister, because I had never (up until now) been attracted by anything to do with Freud and theories of the mind of a psychoanalytical kind.

More recently, an anonymous individual sent me this message, which I promptly ignored, because I failed to understand what the sender was trying to say to me:

Today, I understand at last that I've been stupidly shunning one of the most amazing discoveries of all time. Consequently I'm engaged in a crash course to pick up all the stuff I've deliberately ignored.

Strangely, I don't even regret my ignorance about the workings of the human mind and memories. I simply had no particular reasons to be enticed by such things. Today, everything has changed for me. To be perfectly honest, the individual who operated as a catalyzer for me was the cartoonist Craig Adams, who never stops talking about hypnosis and cognitive dissonance. Only today do I realize what he has been trying to say. Another catalyzer, of a more subtle kind, was Rainer Rilke. I'm thinking in particular of his Malte Laurids Brigge and the personage Nikolai Kuzmich.

I'll no doubt have more to say, in the future, about this fascinating theme of memories.

Premier ministre australien se plaint du fait que les terroristes choisissent Noël

« Nous approchons de Noël, une période au cours de laquelle nous nous rassemblons dans la paix et l'amour avec nos familles. Ces terroristes cherchaient à bouleverser tout ça. »

Non, les terroristes n’ont rien à branler de la paix et l’amour des familles australiennes… qui ne sont d’ailleurs pas forcément chrétiennes. Les salauds profitent du fait qu’il y a beaucoup de gens dans les rues à l’occasion des fêtes de Noël. Ils auraient pu choisir tout aussi bien le Jour de l’An, ou carrément la fête nationale (le 26 janvier).

Imaginer que les terroristes seraient sensibles aux concepts tels que la paix et l’amour, ou qu'ils s'intéressent à la signification profonde de telle ou telle date, est une énorme foutaise.

Mort mathématique

L'abattage a été inscrit dans ces deux petites photos ordinaires, puis programmé mathématiquement, comme les tâches à accomplir dans un bloc texan d'exécution. Ces petits portraits du concerné sont aussi élémentaires que les lignes du programme. On n'inclut pas les cheveux du bonhomme car ceux-ci sont, pour ainsi dire, à côté de la plaque : à côté de la traque du fugitif, du condamné. Il suffit du strict minimum, ni plus ni moins. Anis Amri n'était plus un être humain comme vous et moi. Il était un symbole au milieu d'un processus mathématique.

Endroit où a été abattu Anis Amri, le 23 décembre, à Sesto [Daniele Bennati / AFP]

Un aspect pourtant humain de cette mise à mort programmée m'a rassuré. Les gènes de cet animal pourri ne seront pas transmis à des héritiers. Mais je dois poser tout de même une question évidente. Un assassin de ce type a-t-il réellement du « mal » dans les chromosomes ? La réponse à cette question troublante me transformerait sans doute en mauvais biologiste. C'est la vieille question entre l’inné et l’acquis. Je crois qu'il n'est pas né salaud. C'est son milieu qui lui a donné cet attribut. Mais je patauge forcément dans la semoule chaque fois que je me retrouve devant une telle question. Qu'à cela ne tienne. Le salaud a été neutralisé pour toujours.

To blog or not to blog ?

Aujourd’hui, la question se pose. Mon blog souffre. Son pronostic vital est engagé.

Il fut un temps où Antipodes renseignait un certain nombre d’amis, dont quelques membres de ma famille en Australie, sur mes activités et mon état général, y compris mon état de santé. Aujourd’hui, tout ça, c’est du passé… surtout depuis que j’a pris la solution de m’exprimer principalement en français.

Ce blog avait une autre utilité, plus personnelle. Je m’en servais comme un miroir me permettant de regarder ma propre écriture, ma façon d’aborder en mots tel ou tel thème. Aujourd’hui, j’ai assez d’expérience de la fabrication de phrases pour me passer de critiques publiques, parfois de voix anonymes, des personnes que je ne connais même pas personnellement. Si je veux savoir si l'un de mes textes (en français ou même en anglais) est bien fait, j’ai des amis à qui poser la question. A quoi bon placarder l’Internet de mes écrits personnels ?

Autrement dit, pour conclure, je crains que mon blog n’a plus aucune raison sérieuse d’exister.

Fascinating links

I collaborated for a while with Jean Ichbiah [1940-2007], inventor of the Ada programming language, whose name refers to Ada Lovelace [1815-1852], daughter of the poet Lord Byron. That lady worked alongside Charles Babbage [1791-1871], inventor of so-called engines that were precursors of modern computing machines. Much later, in the context of the affair of French submarines ordered by Australia, I happened to meet up by e-mail with Ross Babbage who informed me kindly, when I asked him, that he was indeed a descendant of Charles. Here are portraits of individuals I’ve just mentioned:

Jean Ichbiah

Ada Lovelace

Charles Babbage

Ross Babbage

I wonder at times if a mysterious Force (?) might have led me, as it were, to all those individuals. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not referring to heavenly guides such as Abraham and Jesus. I was merely imagining possible manipulations carried out by my own humble brain… which has always got a kick out of mentioning unexpected associations (as I’m doing at this very moment).