Winning is not important

They try to save the Tour de France from the doping scandals.

The problem is that it is so important for the participants to win, so the temptation to use doping will always be there. The solution is to make it less important to win. Instead one could base the rules on Just a Minute. You count points, but you do not really care about who won. The exact number of points is never revealed. No prices are handed out. And if there is a argument about the points in a particular stretch of a mountain stage, Nicholas Parsons always is the one with the last word.

The dangerous environment

The current financial crisis is a real problem for the environment. The subprime problems and the story of Jérôme Kerviel take the media's attention from the problems with global warming. As this is going on, public consciousness diminishes, and the environmental problems rise.

On the other hand, it works the other way too. Sooner or later, the media will start talking about the environment again, and people will forget about financial issues. It is all the fault of the environment. Cannot anyone stop the environment, to protect the world of finance?

Misnomer

There are few things as rare in this world as common sense.

I wonder where it is common.

Seeing blind?

According to Nature the blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) swims away from light. It "can sense light when young, even though their eyes lost their function over a million years of evolution." I do not believe that at all. I think it just has good memory.

The noble art of disagreement

It is fully possible to disagree with someone, even if you understand the motivation for his opinion.

Just try.

And flights of angels...

I just learnt that all living creatures without exception sleep - from highly developed Nobel prize laureates to the primitive house fly or the even more primitive telemarketer.

But what about plants and flowers? They sleep all the time, the lazy skivers.

Them too

The military is sometimes a forgotten group. During the Iraq (العراق) war, the press angrily talked about Iraqi civilians being hurt. But what about the Iraqi military? There were certainly thousands of conscripts who wished nothing more than to go home, who were killed by American fire. Did that not matter? Did their mothers cry less, because their sons were part of the army?

The end of Language

I just realised that Language is disappearing. I read a few pages in báró Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy's classic The Scarlet Pimpernel from 1903. I was awed at the language. Not that I had never read any pages in it before. But it just struck me now that all the prose one reads nowadays, on the internet, on television screens, even in newspapers, is null and nothing compared to the prose of Emmuska. Four thousand years of civilisation, and people suddenly stop mastering language.

Perspective

Le Monde today has two articles about human rights.

The first one is about Hú Jiā (胡佳), a dissident who has been sent to prison. The headline, Pékin traque les opposants avant les Jeux olympiques, implies that he is not the only one who has troubles with the government.

The second one is about Guantanamo. Eighty demonstrators against the prison made their way to the Supreme Court in Washington, where they were arrested.

Both articles are interesting. Both articles are important. However, both articles lack attempts at explanations. Why do the Chinese authorities imprison Hú Jiā? What is the rational? And why does he protest and so few others? Why did the American authorities arrest eighty demonstrators? What drives the demonstrators? What drives the authorities not to see what drives the demonstrators?

In other words, neither article supports a dialogue. It would have been so nice if they had been the only articles in the world that had that problem.

2 kinds of opinions. And mine.

There are two main kind of opinions. It is the one of hate and the one of love.

The one of hate may be things like "I hate parking tickets" or "I hate the government" or "I hate the people of the next town".

The one of love may be things like "I love our police force" or "I love the oldest presidential candidate" or "I love my own town".

My own opinions are of a third kind: I have no idea what I want.

But I like your kinds of opinions too.

Found

Announcement in the department store:

Attention, all customers. Yes, all! Please, listen carefully. Quiet over there, at the camping department, please! We have received a grey leather handbag of the brand Deary, model Pauche. It has three pockets on the outside, two of them empty but the third one containing a local bus ticket from Basel's local transport system, bus number 23, issued 26 June at 10.34, monthly reduction price. The interior of the bag contains one brown semi-transparent plastic comb with 2 broken sticks. One packet of Hermann tissues. Three silver Parker pens, out of which only one works. One fairly new yellow note book in A6 format with the words "Doris - ph. 69443222425, buy her some chocolate and don't criticize her new dress". 4605 Euro in cash tied together with a green rubber string and 25 cents, made up of one Italian 20 cent coin and one Dutch 5 cent coin. One Avis car key, with a label on which it is written "Red BMW cabriolet - ACR193". One Glock G31 pistol loaded with three bullets. One postit with the words "Fafner bank - easy one". The bag itself has brass handles and a small scratch in the lower left corner below the pockets. There is a half inch stain, which probably comes from strawberry ice-cream at the closing end of the zip.

The owner may recover the bag if he describes it correctly at the lost-and-found department.

The literature professor's crime

What you learn during literature lessons is how to appreciate good literature. So why do the teachers use up the great classics to teach you this? They thereby destroy the pleasure you could have had, reading the classics as brand new works with your acquired skills.

The standard literature in school and at the universities should instead be Janet Evanovich and Dan Brown. If we were to use them to learn what good literature should have been like, we would appreciate Dickens and Proust much more when we finally were allowed to start reading the real master pieces.

If a teacher forces you to read Oliver Twist before you are able to appreciate it, he commits the horrible crime of depriving you of the experience of having an understanding mind when you read Oliver Twist for the first time.

About me

I am a polyglot, meaning that I know enough about languages not to claim that I am able to speak more than one - if even that.

Happy year!

People keep wishing each other happy new year. Why limit ourselves to the new year? Any year should be happy, whether it is old or new.

Happy 1972! for example.