John Jacobs and Terry Robbins at the Days of Rage, Chicago, October 1969, in "The Weather Underground."
Watch this documentary. Now. 

Outsourcing story

Il y a un mot qui fait peur au bon travailleur Etats-Unien, celui qui travaille dans les usines Toyota, celui qui pond du code C++ dans la Silicon Valley, ou celui qui travaille dans une multinationale high-tech dans Westchester County :

Outsourcing

Fruit de la pure loi de l'offre et de la demande, de l'economie conduite par le marche, du capitalisme triomphant, voila la bete hideuse.

Outsourcing

Mon gentil voisin originaire de l'Inde, barde de diplomes et qualifie en veux-tu en voila, ne s'attendait pas lundi a avoir pour mission de rentrer chez lui, de faire le meme boulot pour la meme boite, et d'etre paye 3 fois moins. Alors mon gentil voisin a dit "allez vous faire foutre", et demissionne de son boulot.

Seulement voila, loyer, credit, bagnole, cela ne se paye pas tout seul. Le pire: l'echeance de son visa qui s'annonce pour les semaines a venir.

Pas de pincettes, pas de plan de restructuration, pas de preavis, pas de protection. Tu bosses, tu bosses et on te balourde comme une vieille chaussette. Yeah !

On peut me dire qu'il n'y a pas plus de 3% de chomage, ca me fait chier, parce que c'est mon gentil voisin qui se fait avoir. Demain ca sera moi ?

Si ca continue je pars a Shanghai, ou a Bengalore. Faut bien que ca serve a quelque chose d'etre quart-Niakoue, un quart Indien, un quart Breton, un quart Francais. Oublierais-je mon quart Quebecois ?

Once upon a time, in a quiet little American town...

Grace & Dogville

I've just watched Lars Von Trier's Dogville, and I'm quite puzzled by this movie.

Is it a deep dive into everyone's darkness, vice and sadism ?
Is there any sign of Antiamericanism ?
Is world's cruelty so unavoidable ?

I have to sleep on it, but at least, i'll remind something. Von trier has been very good to depict a certain kind of hypocrisy that I find quite North American (but I'd be glad to hear the opposite).

You know, this way people manage to make or say the worst insane things to you, with the very strong conviction that this is the best both for you and the others. Without taking any risk to involve oneself.

"Don't take it personally, but..."

"Grace, you know how the freight industry is..."

Stolen moments

I had this conversation about the different meanings of "nostalgia" or "nostalgie" both in English in French. I found some clues in the Found Magazine, a site+magazine entirely composed from human artifacts [photos/letters/scratch] found in the street, under your fridge, in drawers of abandoned houses, everywhere.

Note to myself: The turkey was good.

Who are you ?

Do máthair is ramhar (?)

While particitating to a contest with the theme "Go to the craziest and most useless course ever", I found the idea to attend an Irish Gaelic class particularly relevant.

Mission accomplished: last Monday, I began to study Irish, with a friend of mine and three other people. A 65ish year old retired teacher, 2 close-to-thirty guys (us), and two young girls, about 8-10.

My vocabulary is obviously quite limited. The funniest thing: the pronunciation. It seems impossible to find a real connexion between what is written, and what you have to say.

And no need to say that learning Irish with English speakers, while you're French (or more specifically Breton) is quite an original experience.

But that's so cool to be able to speak Arwen's elfic language. So cool.


PS. On the way back, we hit a deer on the road. That's true. Shit. Remember the scene in "Straight Story", D. Lynch ?

Pince moi, je reve.

An insipid situation I admit: I am at the cashier of a supermarket, close to my work. I pay my salad, my cheese, my milk and all the rest.

I want to use my debit card, and suddenly, my brain is a black hole.

I can't remember my card PIN.

0204 ? 6594 ? 1252 ? 0245 ? 6532 ?

I have no idea !

Weird sensation of being a thief, or having a premature Alzheimer...
Help !

KeyWordsFallTwoThousandFour

Splines - LaliPuna - Halloween - Elastic registration - Jules le chat - Dubya - Pixies

Casa del Popolo on Saint-Laurent str, Montreal, QC.

Psychedeli

I watched the documentary "Berkeley in the sixties" the other day, after the elections, and I was wondering where all this energy of the hippy/anti-Vietnam-war/Black Panther/... subcultures had gone. Man, all those people fighting for idealistic, utopian ideas. And now, we're back to a society not far from Mc Carthy's ideals. I just Can't believe it...

Political dictionary

Main Entry: con·ster·na·tion

Pronunciation: "kän(t)-st&r-'nA-sh&n

Function: noun

Etymology: French or Latin; French, from Latin consternation-, consternatio, from consternare to throw into confusion, from com- + -sternare, probably from sternere to spread, strike down --

Date: circa 1611

: amazement or dismay that hinders or throws into confusion.

< The two stared at each other in consternation, and neither knew what to do -- Pearl Buck >