Beating Google... and illiteracy

In the space of a few years, the Google search engine has become a fabulous phenomenon, enabling us to find practically anything on the net. Personally, when somebody asks me for my Internet coordinates, I've got into the habit of replying: "Google William Skyvington between quotes." That way, I can be sure they'll find me. But it's not the only computer tool that I use daily. Wikipedia is already amazing, and it seems to be growing exponentially. Then there's the splendid online English dictionary on the Macintosh. Once upon a time, not so long ago, a private researcher/writer would have forked out much money to purchase paper dictionaries and encyclopedias of a far less efficient nature than the services rendered by Google, Wikipedia and the dictionary. Besides, today, the above-mentioned services might be thought of simply as the cherries on the icing of the personal computer cake. I say to myself constantly that I'm living in a truly fantastic age...

There's talk on the net news about a research firm named Powerset that would like to upstage Google by means of a search engine that accepts queries in natural language (ordinary English, for instance), such as: "If I asked you to take me to your leader, where would you lead me?" [That's a trivial example I've just dreamed up.] This is a research domain that enthralled me a quarter of a century ago, when I wrote an essay (in French) on artificial intelligence titled Machina Sapiens. Since then, like everybody else, I've cooled down considerably as far as dreams of English-speaking computers are concerned. It's not a matter of computers not being smart enough to speak English. On the contrary, machines are smart enough today not to need to speak English.. which is a quite different kettle of fact-finding fish. For example, a polite ornithologist no longer needs to ask:
"Dear computer, please be so kind as to point me in the direction of information of a general nature concerning the interesting subject of the birds commonly described as robin redbreasts." A couple of Google keywords do the job perfectly: "robin redbreasts".

Globally, I don't know what this means. Kids are already conversing telephonically in abbreviated keywords through text messages. Is Google going to lead them even further away from the great cultural traditions of linguistics and literature? No, computers have never made anybody illiterate... but kids attain unaided that ignoble end when they choose to stop thinking. And that's the problem, not computers.

Truly, I don't know what it takes to persuade kids to think. I can only speak for myself. For me, it was my grandparents, my parents and—to a certain extent—the place where I grew up, named Grafton. But I'm aware that this is in no ways an answer to the general question.

Infamous Aussie

A few days ago, in my post named Astronaughty female, I alluded to a psychiatric disturbance known as the Jerusalem syndrome. And today, I brought up the current-affairs subject of yet another conflict in the Holy City, concerned with the al-Aqsa mosque.

It has often been said that one of the most likely spots on Earth at which World War III could erupt is the Temple Mount: the magic pinnacle of this ethereal and volatile city, capable of casting a fleeting spell of madness upon certain inspired visitors. Well, an Aussie Protestant pilgrim named Denis Michael Rohan—born, like me, in 1940—is often quoted as an exemplary case of clinical Jerusalem insanity, for he succeeded in setting fire to the al-Aqsa mosque at seven o'clock in the morning on 21 August 1969. He watched and laughed as the ancient sanctuary burned, taking photos of the flames on his Instamatic camera. A medieval pulpit was destroyed, along with most of the dome, including the beams and ceiling.

Not surprisingly, many Muslims were convinced for years that mentally-disturbed Rohan was in fact a Zionist agent. The contemporary Israeli writer Amos Elon tell us that, when arrested, the crazy Aussie informed police that he did indeed wish to destroy the Muslim mosque so that the Temple might be rebuilt, "for sweet Jesus to return and pray in it".

I believe that Rohan was tried in Tel Aviv. I've often wondered what became of him. Did he return to Australia, and maybe form a sect out in the desert near Alice Springs? Or did a divine voice convince him that he could safely jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge and glide above the waters like a seagull, or mount towards the heavens like a dove? For me, it's frustrating to realize that I have (or at least had) such a notorious fellow countryman, who might have succeeded in starting World War III, and yet I do not know what became of him. So, any recent information concerning this individual will be appreciated.

When I first started to visit the Holy Land regularly, in the '80s, I wouldn't have imagined I look enlightened. Be that as it may, I could never understand why I was subjected at times to intense interrogations from the Israeli authorities. They would ask me why I was carrying such a sophisticated Nikon camera, and why I had decided to stay at a Protestant hostel in the center of the Christian Quarter of the Old City, and what I intended to do in Jerusalem. At that time, I had not yet heard the tale of the would-be Aussie Messiah. Maybe the Israeli authorities were worried that a guy like me might suddenly imagine himself as a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and start running around the city madly looking for money-lenders' tables to overturn, or souls to raise from the dead. Well, I can reveal publicly today, retrospectively, that these exotic ideas never even crossed my mind.

Earth moving in the Holy City

This afternoon, for an hour or so, I was caught up in friendly e-mail contacts with a few French journalists concerning significant flaws in their Internet reporting on current events in Jerusalem. For example, they had published a report in which it was said that Israeli bulldozers were operating on the Temple Mount. First, I pointed out that the equipment shown in photos consisted of excavators, not bulldozers, and that they were being used for an archaeological investigation down on the plaza of the Western Wall, alongside the earthen ramp that leads up to the Temple Mount. Then, since I know Jerusalem and its history fairly well, I was able to correct other errors of this kind, and even send the journalists a rapidly-drawn map of the Temple Mount area enabling them to understand exactly where the excavating was taking place with respect to the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa mosque and the Western Wall.

It was interesting for me to see that, after each of my e-mails, the article in question, published on the web by a major French media organization, was promptly modified and republished to reflect my suggestions. Then one of the journalists would send me back an e-mail reply thanking me for my help. Since my children are not particularly keen on seeing their father fiddling around in the same professional fields in which they themselves operate, I used a trivial alias in communicating with these journalists. Likewise, I don't wish to indicate here the identity of the organization with which I was in contact, except to say that it is one of the biggest state-owned media systems in France. In any case, I was thrilled to discover that it is perfectly feasible for an unknown private individual such as me to intervene directly, in this fashion, at the level of content concerning such an important current-affairs story.

Heroes, hooligans, porn-singers and dope-takers

During my visit to Australia last August, one of my many pleasant discoveries was a book whose title is to be read at a second-degree level of humor: Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters by Johnny Warren [1943-2004]. He was the sporting hero who played a big role in promoting soccer in Australia.

A week ago, the television showed barbarian Sicilian spectators whose rioting—after a match between Catania and Palermo—caused the death of a policeman. Since then, all matches in Italy have been suspended. The government has decreed strict security regulations for stadiums, but it appears that only four grounds comply with these regulations. Unless work is carried out to make the other stadiums compliant, there's the strange possibility of matches being played behind closed doors.

In France, where certain fans can be just as moronic as in Italy, the soccer world was thrilled to learn on 26 January 2007 that former sporting hero Michel Platini had been elected president of the UEFA [Union of European Football Associations].

In the USA, there were no rioting fans in the context of the Superbowl, but I see that the halftime show has raised eyebrows once again. Last year, Janet Jackson's bra slipped down, revealing one of her breasts... which shocked puritanical TV viewers. This year, it appears that Prince performed behind a huge veil, so that spectators could only see the silhouette of the singer and his guitar... which was cunningly positioned in such a way that it looked like his giant penis.

Talking about sports with problems, Floyd Landis will not be lining up for the Tour de France, since his case of a positive drug test in last year's events has not yet been clarified. Over the last year or so, I've been aware that the daughter of a friend down on the French Riviera had started a promising career in competitive road cycling. When I last asked about her progress, I was surprised to learn that the girl had suddenly abandoned the sport completely. The reason? The people around her, in charge of her cycling career, were starting to insist upon the necessity of her taking certain pharmaceutical products.

I wonder if there are any totally calm and clean sports. One likely candidate: the weird thing called curling, where people with brooms sweep around a huge stone disk as its slides along the ice. I can't imagine that people who play that sport could be anything other than really nice quiet innocent folk. But who knows? Maybe players could get into a dispute through love rivalry, in Lisa Nowak style, and start bashing each other over the heads with their brooms. These days, I'm prepared for anything.

Things that happen conjointly

From a scientific viewpoint, causality is a concept that enables us to predict that such-and-such an event will soon occur as a consequence of an earlier event. For example, if you pour hot water on a ball of snow, it will start to melt.

In the context of mathematical statistics, there's another concept, correlation, which can be applied to sets of events that have already happened, with a view to demonstrating that they appear to be interdependent. You might say that, faced with correlated events, we suspect the existence of causal relationships, but we are not able to specify them precisely. In certain cases, observers discover correlations between series of events that could not possibly be related by causality. For example, we might find that a graph expressing variations in the price of lemonade in Sydney over the last decade is almost identical to statistics concerning the number of foxes killed by hunters in England. Pure coincidence!

In France, at the present moment, road safety authorities are dismayed by the fact that the number of deaths in accidents during the month of January was considerably higher than a year ago. Specialists immediately wondered why. Was there some causal factor behind this disappointing statistic? They have been unanimous in pointing out that there is indeed a strong correlation in France between road deaths and presidential elections. In other words, as strange it might seem, greater numbers of French drivers kill themselves when there's an election just around the corner. The suspected causal relationship involves the weird French tradition of presidential amnesties. In regalian style, one of the first acts performed by a newly-elected president is to grant amnesties to vast numbers of small-time delinquents and citizens who have committed petty misdemeanors such as parking their vehicle illegally or speeding. The alleged reasoning of pre-election drivers is as follows:

If I were to drive recklessly and get pulled over by a gendarme, I might be condemned to paying a fine. But when the new president arrives on the scene next May, he/she will wash away our sins by granting the traditional amnesty. So, there's no reason why I should worry about getting pulled over by a gendarme. So, I'll drive recklessly.

Now, that sounds a bit far-fetched. But experts swear it's a fact that French drivers "reason" in that weird way.

I'm particularly interested in another concept, not unlike correlation, known as synchronicity: a term applied to coincidental happenings that are so amazing that observers get around to wondering if these events were not brought about mysterious forces that we do not yet understand scientifically. A typical case of synchronicity is when you come upon an old letter from a friend whom you haven't seen for ages and, while you're browsing through the letter, the friend in question phones you. It's not surprising that many serious people consider that believing in a concept such as synchronicity is akin to believing in magic. But some scientists are prepared to admit that certain coincidental happenings are so extraordinary that it's tempting to imagine them as instances of situations that we do not master totally in terms of conventional probability theory. Most often, when such happenings are discussed among people of a scientific bent, they soon end up evoking things such as quantum events or Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

My favorite personal synchronicity anecdote concerns the British novelist Lawrence Durrell [1912-1990], who was one of my heroes when I was a young man. I had heard that he lived in a village in Provence, and I imagined erroneously that the name of this village was Nîmes. In fact, Nîmes is a large city, and Durrell's village was located quite a long way away from the city.

[My misunderstanding was like that of a French tourist in Australia who, having heard that a friend lives in the bush to the north of Sydney, starts searching for his friend by taking a taxi to North Sydney.]

Be that as it may, I strolled around the heart of Nîmes, early in the morning, a little dismayed to discover that it was indeed a huge "village"... and nevertheless met up personally with Durrell, seated all alone at a café patio alongside the ancient Roman arena. Exceptionally, Durrell had driven into Nîmes early in the morning to get his automobile repaired. We spent an hour together, conversing about trivia such as Henry Miller's shock at the idea of having to use an outdoor dunny at Durrell's place, and Durrell's relatives in Tasmania who would regularly send him a crate of apples every year.

I've often imagined that I had this marvelous encounter with my novelist hero, not through mere chance, nor even through a causal chain of events, but rather because—somehow or other—I had "willed" that I should meet him there, at that place and at that moment. Now, call me crazy, if you like, call me unscientific... but I can think of no better explanation of this synchronicity.

Astronaughty female

I love the extraterrestrial tale that's all over the web this morning. It's just so American, and at the same time so human, but no Star Wars screenwriter would dare to invent such an unlikely affair. The gist of the story, if you haven't seen it already, is that a 43-year-old female astronaut named Lisa Nowak was arrested for the attempted kidnapping of another woman, an Air Force captain, whom she apparently considers as a romantic rival with respect to a male astronaut. Although the term "kidnapping" is used, it would appear that Nowak's actions could be described more correctly as a premeditated assault, since she concealed her identity by means of a wig and used a can of pepper spray to get a hate message across to her rival. After the attack, police discovered that the astronaut had been carrying, besides the pepper spray, a pellet pistol, a knife, a steel hammer and a meter of rubber tubing... which is almost enough to deter space invaders. If an ordinary passenger tried to get aboard an airliner with such equipment, it would surely arouse suspicions. It might be a fact that this is normal stuff carried around in their handbags by female astronauts. After all, would you expect amazons in that line of work to go around with lipstick and powder puffs in their bags?

One would imagine naively that the Nasa would carefully screen their candidates [click here for news] to reject individuals capable of getting enmeshed in such an imbroglio. Even the mother superior of a nunnery would surely be smart enough to detect signs of vocational inadequacies in the case of a woman who's capable of expressing her charity towards others by means of pepper spray.

Medical authorities in the Holy City have long been aware of a kind of hysteria—known as Jerusalem fever or Jerusalem syndrome—that attacks pilgrims every now and again. The victim (usually, according to hospital statistics, an American male protestant) suddenly goes mad. He throws off his clothes and starts to cry out prophecies in the street. Fortunately, the victim gets back to normal after a calm day or so in a Jerusalem psychiatric clinic.

It's possible that I have a mixed-up mind, but I've often imagined that the euphoria of floating around the Earth in a spaceship could bring on the same kind of ecstatic affliction. I'm convinced that an imaginative astronaut would be capable of creating such a crazy entertaining happening. In any case, the next time they send Lisa up in the air, I'll be glued to the TV news accounts, on the off-chance that she might provide us with a spontaneous space act of one kind or another.

PS Maybe I should cease to joke about these events. Since writing my post this morning, I've learned that Lisa Nowak is charged with attempted murder. So, I'll leave today's blog intact, but I'll say no more about this weird affair. Meanwhile, I can hear the bells of electronic cash registers ringing already as literary agents vie to purchase the film rights of this fabulous story.

Anxiety

Anxiety is surely the next best thing to sex. They are forces of a similarly mysterious nature on the Shakespearean stage of Man in the Cosmos. With anxiety, like sex, there's a gut feeling that physical action needs to be taken, to achieve some inexpressible end. This action concerns our body. In the case of sex, we seek to disappear corporeally into the heavenly haven of another being—re-entry into the primeval womb—to protect ourselves from harm or even annihilation. That's what the verb "procreate" is all about. With anxiety, we would like to scream out that we want to get off the world, because it's moving too fast, but we finally store up our scream in our fragile fear-filled body, in frustration and stunned silence, awaiting encouragement. Meanwhile, we tremble. That's what anxiety is all about.

The supreme critic Voltaire had a nephew named Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian [1755-1794] who wrote fables, using the imagined thoughts of animals to express various moralistic convictions. Now, I can understand the motivations of Claris de Florian insofar as I often use the same subterfuge. If I quote my dog as saying or even thinking such-and-such a thing, that doesn't mean that I would care to express myself in the same outspoken terms, because I don't necessarily agree with my dog. QED

One of the best-known fables of Claris de Florian concerns a dull field cricket (I'm talking of an insect, not a sport) that observes a butterfly. Unfortunately, teenage morons arrive on the scene, are attracted by the presence of the beautiful butterfly, and end up tearing it to pieces in a barbaric fashion. The cricket, witnessing the scene, makes one of the saddest declarations (which I have not attempted to translate poetically) that has ever accompanied the accomplishment of an absurd crime:

Brilliance in this world costs too much.
I'll bask in peaceful retirement.
To live happily, let's live hidden.

Anxiety-ridden Claris de Florian got put into prison during the French Revolution, and he succumbed to his hardships at the age of 38. Maybe he might indeed have been better off if he had decided to live hidden like a cricket rather than gallivanting around in the style of a butterfly.

Happily, today, certain great minds affirm outspokenly that passive anxiety—in the face of religious fanaticism—simply isn't cricket.

Educational project

Can you identify the dull brownish object that I've photographed alongside a euro coin (to indicate its size)? It's a specimen of a Black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, collected at midday on the hill opposite my house. The fellow who found it uses a couple of trained dogs. They came upon three truffles, and he gave me this one. Its exquisite sweet smell is difficult to describe: something like the musty mushroomy aroma of old books stored in a damp corner of a cellar. Nearly half the world's production of this exotic plant comes from France, and 80% of that production comes from the south-east corner of France. Truffles are sold for a fortune at the markets of Richerenches, down in Provence, just to the south of Grignan.

Now, what am I going to do with my truffle? Make a few omelettes? Maybe... but, above all, I'll use a few fragments of the truffle for an intensive canine educational project... which in fact went into operation this afternoon. In a nutshell, I intend to transform my dear dog Sophia into a talented truffle-finder!

Friends have often explained to me the technique. Basically, most dogs pick up easily the pungent aroma of a truffle, but it's not at all the sort of stuff that a dog would wish to eat. So, the dog-trainer combines the use of truffle fragments, placed in a small plastic container with holes all around it, with pieces of tasty dog-food such as ham or chicken. The training consists of coaxing the dog to dig up the plastic container with the truffle fragments, then you reward the dog with ham or chicken. For example, in the beginning, I actually buried chicken bones alongside the truffle container.

Sophia is so obsessed by tasty food (as you might conclude through seeing photos of my plump pet) that she's an ideal candidate for this kind of training. Once she's convinced that there's something worth digging for, she'll work like an engine to get it. Within a space of ten minutes, in a state of excitement (with me yelling out the French word truffe!), Sophia performed half-a-dozen successful tests. All I have to do is to repeat the hide-and-seek game regularly, every day for ten minutes or so, for as long as it takes to bring about automatic reactions from my dog. Meanwhile, I do intend to cook at least one omelette, because I too appreciate tasty food.

Johnnie Walker hypothesis

This morning, I was pleased to receive an e-mail indicating that the time might be ripe to investigate a tantalizing genealogical challenge, which I refer to as the Johnnie Walker hypothesis. There are strong reasons to believe that our ancestor Charles Walker [1807-1860] of Braidwood, New South Wales, might have been a brother of the grocer John Walker [1805-1857] of Kilmarnock, Scotland, who invented whisky. In the context of my maternal family-history research, I also refer to this hypothesis as the Billinudgel legend, since I first met up with it in a letter sent to me in 1980 by Walker people living in the village of Billinudgel near Mullumbimby, in northern New South Wales.

When I brought up this subject with the woman—employed by the international corporation Diageo—who's in charge of Johnnie Walker company history, she was incapable of either substantiating or disproving my hypothesis, and she asked me to keep her informed of the evolution of my research.

This morning, I learned that the Scottish authorities in charge of records at Edinburgh have finally digitized their ancient archives.
[Click here, or on their banner, to visit the site.]

Apart from the amusing idea of a possible relationship with the famous grocer, this hypothesis casts doubts upon the social and religious roots of our Braidwood patriarch, who has always been thought of as an Irish Catholic. Indeed, certain present-day Walker descendants would be surprised—to say the least—if they were to learn that their ancestor was a Scottish Protestant. I've always imagined that 32-year-old Charles Walker might have told a white lie about his birthplace and religion in order to persuade the parents of a 16-year-old Catholic Irish nymph named Anne Hickey to allow him to marry their daughter.

The only obstacle in my forthcoming research concerning this Johnnie Walker hypothesis is that the old parish registers in the Scottish archives for the period 1553-1854 would appear to contain some 50 thousand records concerning individuals named Walker!

All my trials, Lord

Over the last fortnight, I've been following with interest the trial of "Scooter" Libby, former chief-of-staff of US vice president Dick Cheney. Americans are fond of multi-layered hamburgers. The charges against Libby look like a king-size Big Mac: two counts of making false statements to FBI investigators, two counts of perjury before a grand jury, and one count of obstruction of justice. It's weird and wonderful to see dirty clothes being washed already in public while Bush and his cronies still occupy the White House.

Then there's that naughty lad named Tony Blair, who has to tell the schoolmaster all he knows about a quaint affair of peddling knighthoods for cash.

Meanwhile, a most interesting trial is about to start in France. On the edge of the Latin Quarter in Paris, there's a mosque, and the rector is a highly-respected French citizen named Dalil Boubakeur, who is also the president of the Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM): the French Council of the Muslim Denomination. Well, in February 2006, the rector and many of his fellow Muslims in France were deeply offended when a French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, published irreverent caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. In proposing these drawings, Charlie Hebdo was pouring oil upon a fire that had first erupted in Denmark, in September 2005, when Jyllands-Posten had published such artwork. Arguing that these caricatures might "cast a sentiment of hatred" upon all Muslims, Boubakeur decided to attack the French weekly for racist incitation.

Click here to visit the website of Charlie Hebdo, which presents some of these drawings. To my mind, they are rather dull, and not in the least bit offensive (but I'm biased, of course, because I'm not a Muslim). Apparently, it's the drawing of the prophet with a bomb as a turban that most annoys Muslims.

In general, the laic French Republic is not very keen on censorship, particularly when the plaintiffs (those who wish to limit free expression) are inspired by religious beliefs. So, there's little chance that the satirical weekly will be condemned. And, in the case of a negative judgment, Boubakeur and his fellow Muslims would appear to have everything to lose, because humorists might interpret this as an invitation to caricature Muslims more and more offensively.

On the other hand, if Muhammad is really as powerful and offended as his followers make him out to be, Boubakeur could very well win the battle against Charlie Hebdo and its caricaturists. Or the Parisian law courts might even be smitten by a terrible divinely-ordained earthquake next week, burying the evil caricaturists along with their band of character witnesses and supporters: François Hollande (general secretary of the French Socialist Party), François Bayrou (chief of a centrist party, presidential candidate), Dominique Sopo (president of SOS Racisme), the philosopher Elisabeth Badinter, etc. In any case, like Yahveh or the Holy Spirit (or Zeus, for that matter), Muhammad can be expected to act in mysterious ways, providing us with last-minute surprises. With disgruntled divinities, one never knows.

Sophia's treasure

A dog and its bone. What could be more trivial? Hardly worth a blog post. I'm sorry to disagree, but it is! Sophia's bone is a treasure, and the value of a treasure can't be expressed in mundane terms. A treasure is unworldly. For earthlings such as Sophia, it's a taste of paradise. Besides, the aroma of the molecules gives the impression that there might still be a little bit of life in this bone fragment. Sophia likes to grab the bone in her jaws, race around, toss it up into the air and then nudge it with her paws as soon as it falls to the ground, as if it might be coaxed into trying to run away, like a doomed mouse. But the bone stays put. It knows that it would be silly to try to escape from an animal such as Sophia. The bone—maybe the phantom of the dead beast—seems to take passive pleasure in remaining the dog's playmate.

Franco-Australian breakup

An official communiqué informs us that Aussie darling Kylie Minogue and the dashing French actor Olivier Martinez have decided to split up, with the intention of remaining "very good friends"... which is surely an admirable and feasible project. [Click on the image to visit her marvelous website.]

I've always been gladdened by the tiny talented set of artistic Australians who've succeeded in making their presence felt in France. And Kylie Minogue—both as a singer and as a symbol of the struggle against adversity—has always been an exemplary member of this elite.

On the other hand, I've detested all the obnoxious and mindless ballyhoo associated with the celebrated Aussie crocodile-fighter (enhanced by verbiage from Howard, not to mention the ugly American operations being mounted by his widow) who recently lost his last fight against an animal that happened to be smarter than him... which wasn't difficult.

Essential stuff

Let me barge once again through a wide open door by declaring that we live in a world that is becoming more and more complex. Funnily enough, in making that profound statement, I'm thinking, not of computers (which I've always found delightfully logical to employ, particularly when they don't incorporate any Microsoft components), but rather of everyday devices such as phones, hi-fi equipment and even vacuum cleaners.

For example, the other day, I wandered into an appliance store with the intention of buying a packet of vacuum cleaner bags. Before leaving home, I had slid the Miele instruction booklet into my briefcase, imagining naively that it would suffice to show this document to the sales assistant in order to determine the exact model of bags I needed. Huge error! First, I hadn't noticed before that the booklet accompanying my recently-purchased vacuum cleaner was in fact a generic document (the textual equivalent of an old-fashioned bottle of medicine labeled "cough syrup"), which described the essential features that were common to all models of a similar kind produced by that manufacturer. Once in the store, I discovered that it would be practically impossible to find the appropriate dustbags unless I could provide further essential data such as the name of the model and the overall "look" of the bags. Fortunately, I had just removed the old bag, and I had a vague recollection of the discarded thing as I slipped it into my trash can. The girl in the shop was perfect in her role. She took me through a kind of test in the style of a police officer calling upon the memories of a witness to help him in the construction of a robot portrait of a criminal. Was the old bag whitish or rather grayish? Were there a lot of small perforations around the hole in the cardboard piece that clips into the input of the vacuum cleaner, or was this vital part of the bag simply a plain cardboard rectangle with a big hole in the middle? Finally, we succeeded in formulating a relatively precise description of the wanted entity, and I left the store with a packet of bags that turned out to have no resemblance whatsoever to the one I had discarded. They appear to be a new deluxe invention. But the essential thing is that they work. Incidentally, if you think I've inserted this photo for purely decorative reasons, you're wrong. The next time I have to buy dustbags, I'll simply ask the sales assistant to get connected to the Internet, and consult my blog. That way, there won't be any doubts about the right bags.

I got carried away by vacuum cleaner bags. What I really wanted to talk about in this post is the popular topic of fatty acids. Readers have probably seen recent news articles concerning US legislation aimed at reducing the consumption of so-called trans fat. This was a good pretext for carrying out a rapid learning experiment that has been in the back of my mind for ages: namely, to "master" once and for all the chemical and nutritional distinctions between the variable kinds of edible fats. All I can say, for the moment, is that it was a little like deciding to do a quick course in rocket science.

I often wonder if many ordinary people really know what they're talking about when they use casually the intricate terminology encountered in this complex domain: saturated fat, mono-unsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, omega-3, omega-6, hydrogenation, etc. As for me, I feel like an idiot when I'm faced with the technical literature on this subject. Worse than that, I already feel like an ignoramus when I try to read the data printed on foodstuff labels. Even the excellent Greek olive oil that I use abundantly in my cooking carries a detailed description of its chemical composition, in both Greek and English. Normally, when I think of olive oil, I think of Greek islands, Homeric ships, warm hills and nostalgic songs. If I now have to think too of organic chemistry, then what is the world coming to? [As friends will have understood, that's a tongue-in-cheekish rhetorical question, because the truth of the matter is that I love complexity... provided it's not of the dustbag kind.]

A trivial aspect of my fatty-acids learning experience that amused me greatly is the use of the adjective "essential". In English, in the nutritional domain, the terms "fats" and "oils" occur together constantly, almost as synonyms. We all know by now that certain fatty acids (in particular, omega-3 and omega-6) are designated as "essential", because human metabolism requires their presence in our diets. Now, alongside these essential fats, there are much-celebrated products known as essential oils, but it would be a tragic mistake if anybody were to imagine that our metabolism can be improved by adding, say, a few drops of Melaleuca oil to our morning tea or coffee. You don't have to be an expert in Russian espionage tactics to know that the outcome could be fatal. The word "poison" appears on the back of the bottle, but you have to turn it around and hold it up to the light to see the warning. Such oils are designated as essential, not because they're required in any ordinary sense, but because they're produced by distilling various essences.

In this morning's postal mail, I received a friendly circular from the government medical-research organization that has been feeding guinea pigs such as me, for the last year, a daily diet that could well be composed of both vitamins and omega-3, but which could just as well be neither. Unfolding the three pages of the letter, with tables of statistics and delightful colored charts, I said to myself with joy that I was surely about to receive some solid information about this complex subject. All I needed to do was to plow through the scientific data sent to me by Inserm [Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale] in the same way that I've been using Wikipedia to brush up my knowledge on fatty acids. What profound information did I acquire? I'll simply give you a couple of samples. Apparently, three-quarters of the 2000 men being tested used to be smokers. Big deal! But wait until you hear the following sensational scoop. Inserm asked their guinea pigs whether they were annoyed by the relatively large size of one of their two daily pills. Guess what: 83.1 % of the people said no. As for the others, they replied that they had indeed noticed that it was a pretty big pill [see my previous post on the ambiguity of the word "pretty"], but this didn't dissuade them from swallowing it. As I've often said, science is omnipresent in the modern world, and it's fun! But every aspect of our daily lives is indeed becoming more and more complex...

Rural problem solving

As a kid, I was amused by the trivial ambiguity of the expression "pretty little man". Normally, "pretty" is used as a grammatical submodifier meaning "rather" or "fairly", which means simply that a pretty little man is rather small. But there's also a comical interpretation: a little man who's pretty. Today's title is similarly ambiguous. Am I referring to the solution of rural problems, or rather a rural fashion of solving problems? In fact, both...

We neo-rural people (as newcomers such as me are sometimes designated) have a typical problem that consists of keeping the weeds down. At Gamone, from the beginning, I chose a sheep-donkey-goat solution. Such animals create, however, as many problems as they solve, because they have to be fenced in, and this can be a difficult challenge for a land-owner on rocky slopes such as those of Gamone. I've often wondered how my ancestor Charles Walker [1807-1860] fenced in his sheep on his property at the Irish Corner near Braidwood. Maybe he didn't. A well-trained dog [an epithet that cannot be applied to my dear Sophia... nor even to her daughter Gamone, whose departed dad Louky—whom I knew quite well—was a collie professional in this domain] is just as effective as wire fences. I realize retrospectively that I should have adopted such a solution at Gamone long ago...

An even better solution consists of simply letting the weeds grow profusely, under the sole constraints of Nature. You can't beat Nature. It's like Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides, I've recently discovered a host of wonderful scientifically-inspired people, known as ROC, who are attempting to take back French landscapes from mindless hunters.

In evoking the idea of a rural fashion of solving problems, I would like to translate the everyday French word "paysans" (people of the earth) by "peasants", and evoke the perfectly honorable concept of "peasant thinking". But the English language adds an undesirable slant to this lovely term.

My friend Pierrot, the communal employee (who knows everything that's happening at Choranche), informed me this afternoon that my four stray sheep have reappeared at the summit of the Gamone/Sirouza valley, and that they might venture dangerously [for human travelers] onto the mountainous road that descends from Presles to Choranche and Pont-en-Royans. In other words, I can no longer simply ignore the fact that four sheep, of which I would appear to be the owner, are henceforth gallivanting around this dangerous zone. For example, if a driver or cyclist were to crash into one of my stray animals, I could be accused of criminal negligence. To appreciate the sense of the following exchange, you need to know that Pierrot happens to be an official sheep grazier.

Pierrot: It would be easy to use croquettes to coax them into an enclosure.

William: I can't drive up there, several times a day, and try to persuade my four sheep to eat my croquettes. Besides, what would I do if they did so?

Pierrot: They need to be captured. It's easy.

William: Captured? Dead or alive? Should I move up there with my shotgun and kill them, one by one? I can't stand the risk of leaving them move around on the slopes, with the risk of their straying onto the road and provoking accidents.

Pierrot: (shocked): No, they can be captured.

William: Could you capture them?

Pierrot:: Yes, with croquettes... slowly but surely.

William: Would it be worthwhile capturing them? Would you be interested in such animals?

Pierrot:: Yes. I need to replace animals devoured by wolves.

William: Pierrot, if you capture my sheep, I don't want them. They're yours. Would that suit you?

Pierrot:: Sure. I'll see what I can do...

That, my friends, is a pure example of subtle Choranche peasant-talk. As a naive unskilled observer and participant, I needed time to discover that my wayward animals might interest a helpful neighbor such as Pierrot. The local folk state that, for a newcomer, things start to fall into place within the context of a tiny community such as Choranche once you can boast of the presence of three or four generations of ancestors in the local cemetery. In that perspective, I've got a little time on my hands... and my stray sheep will find their way to Pierrot.

Lovable animals

This morning, from my bathroom window, I caught sight of a weasel under my grapevine. The elegant little beast (scientific name Mustela nivalis, the world's smallest carnivore) disappeared before I could grab my camera, so the photo here comes from the web. While looking for the image, I ran into a nursery rhyme that I remember well from my childhood:

All around the mulberry bush,
The monkey chased the weasel,
The monkey stopped to pull up its socks,
Pop! goes the weasel.

On the surface, it looks like nonsense, and I started to wonder how and why these unintelligible lines would have remained intact in my brain for all this time. I still don't know. But thanks to Google, I learned that the words and phrases of the nursery rhyme are no doubt a muddled mixture of codified 19th-century London slang.

After the weasel, from the same window, I noticed another wild animal: a young roe deer, annoyed to find itself trapped in a corner of the sheep paddock. I wandered down with my camera and got close enough to get a few photos of the animal. As soon as the deer saw Sophia and me, it decided that there was no point in loitering any longer at Gamone, so it turned around and bounded across the paddock in huge leaps. Its amazing acceleration from zero reminded me of the automobiles at the start of the Monte Carlo Rally. At full speed, the deer hurdled a sheep fence on the far side of the paddock and disappeared into the woods.

Among the Christian saints, besides my favorite Bruno, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Francis of Assisi, because of his success with sheep and wolves. Maybe it's some kind of jealousy, in that sheep tend to run away from me and, back in Paris, dogs used to bite me. In any case, it's a fact that I can't compete with Saint Francis. As they say in French, between Francis of Assisi and me, there's no photo finish. Seriously, once upon a time, I might have been dismayed by the fact that it's not possible to make friends, here at Gamone, with weasels and wild deers. But these days, after my intensive reading of books on evolution and genetics, my attitude has changed completely. When I see an animal dashing away at top speed from a dangerous human being (me, for instance), like the proverbial bat out of hell, I imagine with pleasure that I'm witnessing a demonstration of the specific behavior—referred to as a phenotype in the jargon of genes—that has enabled its species to survive and evolve since the beginnings of life on Earth. I've been warned that the new donkey Mandrin likes to wander into kitchens and eat any food that's lying around on the tables. But donkeys abandoned the wild woods nearly as far back as naked apes. On the other hand, if a weasel or a roe deer were to come up and try to share a meal with me, I would look it straight in the eyes and say: "With behavior of that kind, my dear friend, you should have become extinct ages ago."

On television this evening, a journalist asked a celebrated French zoologist if she could explain why many local animals apparently picked up advanced signs of the terrible tsunami of 2004. The impassioned explanations of the zoologist gave the impression that we dull humans cannot compete with animals in the domain of sensitivity to things that are happening in the world around us. Fish could feel the approaching waves of the tsunami in mysterious "radar" detectors on the sides of their bodies. Birds had a birds-eye vision of the approaching terror, and they started screeching at a pitch that only dogs and other birds could hear. Elephants felt the vibrations in the pads of their feet, and monkeys realized that the fish and the birds and the elephants were upset about something or other. As for us drowsy humans, we just ain't capable of realizin' nothin', because we're too busy doing serious things such as talking or reading or taking photos or trying to win friends and influence people in one way or another.

Sometimes, I wish I were a weasel, or maybe a wild deer. No, let me be serious. The animal I would like to be is a dog. Like Sophia.

Moving mountains (addendum to previous post)

Following my initial version of yesterday's post, I received feedback suggesting that my stance on global warming was lukewarm (pardon the pun), since I didn't seem to be as excited about this danger as I might be. Now, it's possible that I expressed myself ambiguously when clumsily associating events of the early '70s with today's grave environmental situation, as attested by countless serious witnesses. So, at the risk of repeating myself, I wish to make it clear that I believe, like most responsible observers, that global warming brought about by the excessive emission of greenhouse gases is a frightening threat, and that every citizen should stand on the rooftops and cry out—as best and loudly as he/she can—about this imminent danger.

Yesterday, I was trying to make two further points:

(1) In the beginning, we should adopt a cautious attitude, a priori, to many things that are being said on such a hot topic, even if this means being patient until we hear from authoritative specialists... such as those gathered together in Paris this week.

(2) If the problems are indeed as grave and urgent as what it appears, then they will surely need to be "managed" (I'm aware that this word is rather silly, but I prefer to remain fuzzy) by a world body associated with the UN.

Since writing yesterday's post, I see with alarm that the hobgoblin in the White House is even more dim-witted and nasty than what I had already imagined. The Californian Democrat Henry Waxman has just revealed that Bush administration officials had attempted to "mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming". Waxman spoke of a former lobbyist for the oil industry who happened to be head of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality. This lobbyist "imposed his own views on the reports scientists had submitted to the White House" as part of what Waxman called an "orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change".

In spite of numerous recorded cases of political interference in the work of US climate scientists over recent years, Bush dared to let off hot air in his recent State of the Union address about the need to deal with "global climate change". To my mind, it's the microclimate in Washington that needs to be dealt with, drastically and rapidly.

Meanwhile, as the world awaits forthcoming information from the current IPCC meeting in Paris, there is talk of pressure being brought to bear on Ban Ki-moon, the new UN Secretary-General, persuading him to convene a summit conference of the world's leaders to deal with the threat of global warming.

Back in 1969, Ban Ki-moon's predecessor U Thant stated that "the members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion and to supply the required momentum to development efforts". Those words were spoken 38 years ago. Let us be absurdly optimistic and hope that, during that time, members of the United Nations have indeed become wiser and less quarrelsome than what they were at the time of U Thant.

A ray of light and hope in France. This morning, Nicolas Hulot's much-publicized ecological pact (mentioned in an earlier post) brought about a spectacular rendezvous of ten presidential candidates who explained, one after the other, why they had signed it. Is it thinkable that a TV star could in fact end up moving mountains more effectively than even a Secretary-General of the United Nations?

Too late? A first answer on Friday

This week, Paris is the world center of worries about the weather. Some 500 experts associated with a UN-sponsored body called IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] have gathered together at the Unesco headquarters in the City of Light with the aim of examining their latest scientific report on the state of the planet's climate. This report has not yet been released to the general public, but leaks from IPCC members suggest that the findings and predictions are dramatic, if not grim. Is there still time to intervene before global warming makes the planet an unpleasant place for our descendants? Greenpeace apparently thinks so, according to this sign attached to the Eiffel Tower:

One of the hypothetical climatic changes that interests me is the possibility that the nearby Alps, losing their capacity to host skiing, would become a summer paradise for visitors who, literally, want to keep cool. At the moment I'm writing these words, a log fire is burning in my fireplace down in the living room. Indeed, a touch of global warming would be greatly appreciated at Gamone (particularly by the donkeys and the billy goat, whose snouts are chilled by their having to scrape aside the snow to get at the grass).

I'm dazzled by the evolution of environmental thinking over the last quarter of a century. By chance, I had an opportunity of attending the first UN world conference on the environment in Stockholm in 1972, where I collaborated with Eric M Nilsson in making a documentary film for French television. At that time, environmental issues were being publicized by a curious organization known as the Club of Rome, founded by the industrialist Aurelio Peccei [1908-1984] at a 1968 reunion in the Italian capital.

This "invisible college" or "think tank" commissioned a report exploiting mathematical methods invented by an MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] model-maker, Jay Forrester. The results were published in a book, The Limits to Growth, which became an overnight best-seller. I've still got my copy, purchased up in Stockholm in 1972, but—to borrow a quaint expression I discovered this morning on the Dilbert blog—nobody would give a rat’s ass today about the totally fictional scenarios cooked up by those alleged MIT experts back at the start of the '70s.

Once again, I like to apply my favorite yardstick, credibility, to all apocalyptic declarations (particularly, but not exclusively, if they happen to be made in America by experts). For the moment, although I admire the evangelical work being carried out in this domain by Al Gore, Nicolas Hulot and others, I believe that only a world body can tackle effectively this gigantic challenge for survival. In any case, next Friday, we should get some tangible and credible feedback from the specialists meeting in Paris.

On the road to Valence

Like the apostle Paul, it's often when I'm traveling that I receive revelations... but that's probably all we have in common. The reasons why driving is conducive to revelations are easy to understand. When I'm alone in the old Citroën, and the road is straight and wide, the only thing I can do (besides guiding the automobile and being on the alert for possible dangers) is to think about things. So, whenever I have to drop down to Valence to do some shopping, I end up doing a lot of thinking about all kinds of things, both big and small. Most often, my thoughts remain at a fairly low level, like the clouds over Choranche. But it sometimes happens that a good idea springs forth. Sometimes, even, a great idea. As for revelations, they are exceptionally rare events. And the most profound and intense revelations are those that hit you like a thunderbolt from the heavens when you're least expecting it.

The flash of enlightenment that struck me on the road to Valence, a few days ago, was the outcome of reading that has been taking a certain amount of time to sink in, to make its messages at home in my neurons. Readers who have observed some of the posts in my blog (including the confusing one on the theme of the meaning of life) won't be surprised to hear that the spellbinding stuff I've been reading—the source of my awakening—was written by an English scientist, six months younger than me, named Richard Dawkins. If you click on this stylized image of a DNA spiral, you can visit the official Dawkins website... which reveals, incidentally, that he has acquired stardom status throughout the world as a result of his excellent writing style and his courageous and well-informed stance on current themes such as the rational impossibility of divinities responsible for the alleged "intelligent design" of the Cosmos. To my mind, this popular success of Dawkins is a promising positive outcome. After all, a planetary battle is currently raging against the forces of religious obscurantism, and it is reassuring that a few of our commanders should be enlightened scientists rather than mindless politicians, puppets, prophets, priests and soldiers.

The Dawkins-inspired revelation that has just struck me? Like most people, I've always imagined up until now that the fundamental entity of human existence on Earth (that last precision, "on Earth", excludes extraneous allusions to what might or might not exist in the Heavens) is the individual, like you or me, and that our species survives through the biological process of procreation, which involves tiny secondary entities—of interest only to scientific experts—known as chromosomes and genes. Well, today, I realize that this is a totally upside-down (antipodean) view of things, which must indeed be designated as false. The fundamental entities of human, animal and plant existence on Earth are the tiny genes, not individual human beings such as you or me. The genes of animals and plants survive eternally (or almost) in ways that are unthinkable for the animals and plants themselves, which must be seen as mere transient containers or carriers for the immortal genes.

Now, those few assertions might look like a small step for a humble thinker like me, but they're a giant step for global philosophizing about the meaning of our existence. To use another metaphor, we humans are like the Aéropostale planes and FedEx vans that crisscross the planet, so that the mail gets through. [See my earlier post on this theme.] But the mail itself is composed of genes.

Fifty posts in my blog!

While I never set out to break records, I'm happy to see that my blog has passed the mark of 50 posts. And this article in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald (which didn't surprise me, of course) is a good pretext for celebration:

Click on the above cutting to see the article in the
Sydney Morning Herald, or on the following image to see
the original article in the US publication International Living.

Memories of Vietnam

For old-timers such as me, this morning's Internet images of the anti-Bush protest rally in Washington bring back media memories of the Vietnam days. It's moving to learn that Jane Fonda herself was there in the crowd: her first presence at an anti-war rally in 34 years. Admittedly, for the moment, the throngs of protesters are not as large as in the Vietnam demonstrations, but this is no doubt just a start.

The most pernicious argument being used by Bush supporters to condemn the idea of cutting off funds for the pursuit of the war in Iraq is that this would amount to abandoning the US troops who are already there. Surely Congress could allocate no more and no less than the exact level of funding required to get the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. If this step were to be taken, immediately, Congress could not be accused of abandoning the troops.

In evoking Vietnam, I wonder if George W Bush recalls the famous warning of the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana in The Life of Reason: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." There's another relevant assertion in this same great book: "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." To my mind, many Americans, today, have forgotten their aims.