Sorry so long. I went to Egypt where there were as many police and soldiers as tourists and […]
Merry Christmas to the four billion people in the world living on less than four dollars a day. Merry Christmas to the hundreds of thousands, soon to become millions, of home owners heading to the streets in the sub-prime crisis. Merry Christmas to the forty-seven million Americans without health insurance. Merry Christmas to all the privileged people who have to work for peanuts and then die when they reach the age of retirement if they have a retirement system which will give them less than they need to eat anyway.
And a Jolly ho-ho-ho to all those on Wall Street and the City who are collecting multi million dollar bonuses for a job well done destroying our world’s economy. Season’s Greetings to those who send out people strapped with bombs to blow up busy markets. And to American fighter jet pilots who never get to see the collateral damage.
Paris, Dec. 11, 2007 — The evolution of the debate on evolution is accelerating but still politically side-stepping the question. The latest developments are in today’s press and concern findings by two American anthropologists.
“Human Nature is shitting in your pants but we learned to do otherwise.” Professor Paul Oren who is dearly missed.
Paris, France — The banker looked at me with a puzzled expression when I told her a recent poll shows 47% of the French fear they could one day be homeless.
“I’m surprised only 47% realize it,” she said.
Djibouti, Nov. 24 — Before the Europeans came and showed them how to do it, Africans did not have passports, or stamps to put in them, or visas. Like elsewhere around the continent, the Djiboutians have become masters at the bureaucratic hassle table.
Djibouti, North Eastern Africa — The atmosphere was electric Thursday morning. Friday is their day off and Thursday is Khat day, the day everybody indulges heavily in the chewing of the narcotic plant. I had seen them buying Khat from women on the street feverishly every afternoon but Thursday was the mother of all euphoria.
Paris, France —The public seem to be fed up with French public service workers (railroad, electric etc.) who want to retire with 1200 euros pension a month at the age of 50 or 55, depending on their job. Others are fed up with paying for their special pension schemes. They say these workers are privileged. OH, the hypocrisy of it all.
Paris, France — Many workers in the French public sector went on strike today to protect what President Sarkozy calls their “special regime”. Sarkozy has managed to convince a majority of the French public that these workers are privileged.
Today French President Nicolas Sarkozy told us in a speech for the 89th anniversary of Armistice Day that ‘war is Hell‘. This man, who did no military service, dared to speak of the horror and the suffering of a generation sent to the slaughter by politicians like him, in the interests of wealthy friends like his.
