About a month ago, a colleague told me that another of our co-workers had kittens he was looking to give away. The mother cat had been scheduled for spaying, but she fell pregnant just before! The timing was great, since the neighbors just above me got a kitten a few months ago, and Kanoko was simply delighted to play-chase with her across the fencing (she climbs down into the courtyard, and can’t get on my patio). Seeing that, I knew Kanoko would probably be just as happy to have a kitten friend at home, and would welcome one as easily as he did the neighbor kitten. I agreed to take one of the four kittens.

Three were grey tabbies, and the fourth was all black. Grey was a grey tabby, so I opted for the black kitten. It turned out that s/he was so shy and rambunctious, that the man caring for the mother and kittens could never get close enough to tell whether s/he were a “she” or a “he”! I didn’t mind since Kanoko is easy-going; female or male, either would have been fine. But what to name her/him?

Studio Ghibli films are some of my favorites, so I went through possible names: “kurosuke” was too straightforward (“kuro” means “black” in Japanese); “Jiji”, the name of the black cat in “Kiki’s Delivery Service” sounded too much like a rather vulgar word in French; so I thought perhaps “Mei” would be good for a female – it’s the name of the little girl in “My Neighbor Totoro”. Then a friend and fellow Ghibli fan mentioned that the soot sprites are also called “susuwatari”, and that “Susu” could be a good name, as well as “Tari”! That was perfect.

Today the little sprite finally let her/himself be caught, so the guy ran with his good luck and kindly drove her/him to my place in Nice. S/he cried and hid a bit at first, but after only an hour, had figured out how to push open a door far enough to get through and sneak past me without noticing. I thought I’d lost her until she finally mewed her presence behind the washing machine!

I was able to pick her up and put her back in her area, and noticed that she is indeed a female. So, here you have miss Susu the soot sprite! She and Kanoko are getting along swimmingly. As I’d hoped, Kanoko is peachy keen on having a new friend, and has been his usual sweet self. Susu cries a bit for her siblings and mother still, but seems comforted by Kanoko’s presence, since she keeps approaching him for sniffs, with ears forward and tail perked. I’m delighted it’s going so well, I never thought they’d be comfortable together so quickly.

Ma cérémonie d’accueil dans la nationalité française took place on Friday, in the palais préfectoral located in Vieux Nice. The “prefectoral palace” was formerly le palais des ducs de Savoie ; le palais des rois de Sardaigne. Just 150 years ago, Nice was not part of France, but part of the duchy of Savoy, which later became part of the kingdom of Sardinia, thus the dual names for the palace. Although the palace is open to visit a few times a year, I’d never been inside, so it was quite a treat to experience the richly decorated salle des fêtes (festival hall) firsthand.

About a hundred brand-new French citizens residing in the département des Alpes-Maritimes had been invited to the ceremony, so it was quite large, and long. The sous-préfet began the ceremony with a nice speech, then we stood to sing La Marseillaise. After that, we were shown a short film entitled “Devenir Français”, which gave a very brief history of la République Française, the Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, some background on the French republic’s values (and official motto) liberté, égalité, fraternité, an additional bit on laïcité, and finally, a rather jarring sequence of ground, air, and naval war scenes with running commentary about how we could be called to defend France.

Once the film had finished, we were each called by name to shake hands with the sous-préfet and our city’s representative, and receive our new papers. There was a verre de l’amitié (“friendship toast”) afterwards, but as we’d all arrived at 8:30am and I was finally called at 11am (they went in alphabetical order), I didn’t hang around to see how it went. Neither did many others – it was kind of a shame that they had invited so many of us at once, since a smaller group would have been more conducive to meeting people. Even the préfecture staff commented on how the group was a bit too large, so I got the sense that they’ll be on a smaller scale in the future.

A little something to change from the harsh news of the past week (Arizona shooting, Queensland floods, Tunisian beginnings of a revolution, Brazilian floods…). Now, do please keep in mind that there’s no such thing as cats “dropped under normal conditions”. Be kind to kitties, don’t drop them :)

By the way, if you’re on Facebook and have a penchant for delectably soft cat stomachs, come and “like” Kitty tummies!

Kitty tummies

A US representative from Arizona, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot point-blank in the head yesterday, after which the gunman shot indiscriminately into the crowd. From that BBC article:

Sheriff Dupnik said a consuming atmosphere of political vitriol centred on Arizona may have been a factor in the attack. “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,” he said. “The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

This anger had spilled into violence before, with Ms Giffords’ office being vandalised last March after she upset Arizona conservatives by supporting Mr Obama’s healthcare reform bill.

A few days ago, an internet acquaintance committed suicide; he had been severely abused from an early age. A week before that, I finished writing my paper for a Masters course titled “Theatre and violence”. We had studied Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus”, Sarah Kane’s “Blasted”, Botho Strauß’ “Schändung” (based on “Titus Andronicus”), and Corneille’s “Medea”. In finishing my paper, I was relieved; the course had been interesting and eye-opening, but I was glad to move on from the heart-rending subject matter. Instead, I’m a bit overwhelmed by this last week.

Thankfully, the New York Times published a piece that says much of what I think; much of what many of us think, who have been watching inflammatory rhetoric in the US go far beyond reason. A Turning Point in the Discourse, but in Which Direction?

What’s different about this moment is the emergence of a political culture — on blogs and Twitter and cable television — that so loudly and readily reinforces the dark visions of political extremists, often for profit or political gain. It wasn’t clear Saturday whether the alleged shooter in Tucson was motivated by any real political philosophy or by voices in his head, or perhaps by both. But it’s hard not to think he was at least partly influenced by a debate that often seems to conflate philosophical disagreement with some kind of political Armageddon.

The problem here doesn’t lie with the activists like most of those who populate the Tea Parties, ordinary citizens who are doing what citizens are supposed to do — engaging in a conversation about the direction of the country. Rather, the problem would seem to rest with the political leaders who pander to the margins of the margins, employing whatever words seem likely to win them contributions or TV time, with little regard for the consequences.

For readers who may not be aware of the specifics, Gabrielle Giffords, the woman shot, was one of the targets (designated by crosshairs) on a map from Sarah Palin, called “We’ve diagnosed the problem… help us prescribe the solution.” Giffords is named specifically on the map key, signed by Palin herself. I linked the NYT article before bringing it up for a reason: “Odds are pretty good that neither of these — nor any other isolated bit of imagery — had much to do with the shooting in Tucson. But scrubbing them from the Internet” (which Palin did following the shooting) “couldn’t erase all evidence of the rhetorical recklessness that permeates our political moment.”

When brushed aside as “nothing more than…”, violence begets violence. It’s high time that more people recognize that physical violence is not the only form. Rhetorical and emotional violence also exist; the weakest in society pay for it the most: children, minorities, the mentally ill and unstable. Whether it manifests in suicide, rape, beatings, murder, assassination, war, we all end up feeling the consequences. The cycle can end when violence’s more subtle, subversive forms are recognized and called out for what they are: Wrong. Abusive. Unacceptable. We can do better. More positively, we can encourage respect, tolerance, and recognition that we’re all in life together.

I originally posted this elsewhere, but after a good night’s sleep on the subject and more supportive feedback, I realized I wanted to post it here as well. Long-time readers may recall that, occasionally, I would comparatively analyze French and English-language news articles to show how facts were spun in order to support prevailing stereotypes on both sides, and the political implications of it, whether up-front or, most often, hidden. I stopped doing that, paradoxically enough, when I became more interested in the historical background of stereotypes and their use, and the effects still felt in today’s world. If you have a creative bent, you’re probably familiar with the phenomenon: there comes a point where it’s more about “gestation” than “birth” (expression), and the best thing you can do is let it all divide and grow and define itself until that mysterious moment when creator and creation both say, “ready!”

One of my courses for the Masters degree in comparative literature that I’m doing, is on image studies, literature and ethnology. Our main assignment for the course is an exposé, the French term for “oral presentation”, on one of the course topics. (Those who don’t want to give an oral presentation can turn in a 25- to 30-page paper instead.) I chose to do a presentation on the topic “The political use of stereotypes in America”. There will be a topic on the same in France. Originally, I planned to do a comparison of the French image of Americans, and vice versa, but… the more I read about Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, and the more links I found with that faction of the right that’s taking the USA back 100 years to trusts and robber barons… the more my presentation became an exposé in the English sense of the term (it’s also a meaning of the word in French).

It was a 45-minute, 15-page presentation (in French), so I won’t rewrite it here, but suffice to say that I was surprised by my own findings. I did not set out to discover what I did. It literally fell into my lap, “merely” because I was looking at related things, by chance, at the right time. I put “merely” in quotes because, nonetheless, I did have to put my lap there, so to speak, and it also depended on others’ awareness.

So, in brief (there is a great deal of other detail that’s just as pertinent): After successfully selling World War I to the US people, Edward Bernays was one of the key minds behind the coup d’état in Guatemala, 1954. The democratically-elected Guatemalan president Arbenz wanted to give unused, corporate-owned lands to Guatemalan farmers, and was going to compensate the companies whose lands were taken, with the same monetary value as they had declared on their taxes. United Fruit Company had declared $3/acre. Where was the problem? Judging from UFC’s reaction, it would seem they hadn’t given an entirely truthful evaluation of the land’s value on their tax declarations. In retaliation against Arbenz’ offer, UFC declared that the true value was $75/acre. Twenty-five times more! Without explanation! And they lobbied Eisenhower’s government to overthrow Arbenz’s government. Together with the CIA, headed by Allen Dulles, whose brother John was a key shareholder in UFC, Edward Bernays created a propaganda program to turn Guatemalan public opinion against Arbenz, by painting Arbenz and his supporters as communists. A similar propaganda effort was undertaken in the US, to drum up American criticism of Arbenz by using staged “proofs” of communism. Stereotypes. It succeeded. Arbenz was overthrown; a military junta took over Guatemala in 1954. From 1960 to 1996, the country was in civil war.

What does that have to do with today’s corporate interests meddling in politics? Absolutely everything. More than I imagined. First, two important bits of information: United Fruit Company changed its name to Chiquita. Also, Karl Rove, head of Bush’s strategy, now on his own, is a student of Bernays.

Recent news: Billionaires give 91 percent of funds for Rove-tied group. Note the donations by the previous owner of Chiquita, 90-something Carl Lindner. His Wikipedia article does not mention Chiquita, but United Fruit Company‘s does mention his ownership. While he wasn’t owner during the worst of it, it’s no less striking: Chiquita under Lindner has quite a shady history. In 2007, “the 29th Specialized District Attorney’s Office in Medellín called the board members of Chiquita […] to make statements concerning charges for conspiracy to commit an aggravated crime and financing illegal armed groups.” Back to Rove and current US politics: Rove Groups, U.S. Chamber Build Winning Record in Elections. “The group backed the victor in 23 of the 36 House and Senate races where a winner was declared.” Then of course there are the numerous ties to the Koch brothers’ influence (purchasing/funding) of the Tea Party, and their cold-blooded utilisation of stereotypes to fan up support. It’s classic Bernays, and has Cold War ties, which are directly linked to Bernays as well — he and Walter Lippmann were colleagues in the creation of that very term, “Cold War”, as well as “manufacture of consent”.

The Century of the Self is a four-part BBC documentary that discusses Bernays and his legacy. It’s excellent and will change how you see the world. Also, for the Rove-Bernays connection, Karl Rove and the Spectre of Freud’s Nephew. Bernays was “double nephew” to Sigmund Freud: Bernays’ father was the brother of Freud’s wife, and Bernays’ mother was Freud’s sister. (Freud’s obsession with a certain type of impulse and his own blindness to his personal weaknesses would be yet another subject. He had excellent ideas about projection, transference, et cetera, but it’s both fascinating and terribly sad to see that Freud’s denial of, rather than dealing with, his darker side, which he projected as a very dark idea of “human” unconscious, led to tragic results in his personal circle, and in the way his work lent itself to use on a wider scale. Anyone interested would do well to read what Carl Jung had to say about Freud, namely in Symbols of Transformation.)

How to counteract the overwhelming manipulation by fear and stereotypes? I chose “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “The Fire Next Time” (by James Baldwin) as examples of literature describing stereotypes, psychological projection and their terrible effects… and the heartening, personal lesson each of us can use to counteract it: love. Agape, philia love. Love for humanity. We’re all human, we all have our faults. It’s hard enough to know ourselves; how can we possibly pretend to “know” what an entire group of people is like? Humility. Taking the time to get to know others as individuals. Stopping, when we hear a generalisation, and taking the time to question it — because of that fundamental love for humanity.

Because the commission that validated my Masters application was held after classes began, I can’t say that “classes start this Wednesday” — they started nearly a month ago! I can, however, say that “I’ll be starting classes this Wednesday.” For the second year of the comp lit Masters, we take three courses: one is a required research seminar, the second is another research seminar that the student chooses, and the third is called a unité d’enseignement or UE, academic subject, which is also at the student’s choice. All are held one day a week, over a two-hour session. The second seminar I want to take is held on the same day as the required one, which is nice! I’ll be able to take that one day a week off work, and do the third course half electronically, half in person, since it’s held in the evenings (I would have to leave work early to get there on time).

I’ve spent the last few days hurriedly organizing things so that I have as much logistical support, so to speak, as possible. As always, I have a very limited budget, but I enjoy the challenge it brings, and often find that it helps streamline where you might not have otherwise.

First, I wanted a cheap, reliable way to keep on top of work, school, and personal emails, since a lot of my coursework will be done electronically. While a good solution might have been a netbook, which also could have been used for homework, I didn’t want one for two reasons: even a small, light one would be a pain to haul around on buses every day, and I couldn’t afford one anyway. I decided to upgrade my phone instead, and got a Nokia E71. It can use 3G and WiFi networks (among others), which is perfect since I’ll have free WiFi coverage at the university and at home. I got a barebone subscription with unlimited internet for 22 euros a month — that’s quite cheap for France, which has the most expensive 3G subscriptions in the world. You might be wondering why I’m happy to have free WiFi since I get unlimited 3G coverage… while it is unlimited, the connection is downgraded (slower) once you’ve used more than 500Mb of traffic in a month. That’s a healthy amount of traffic for a smartphone, but I’ll still be happy to use the free WiFi spots when I can, since they may well be faster.

Second, I wanted a dedicated study area. Growing older has further ingrained the importance of separating relaxation from work/school, so, if possible, I didn’t want to use my nice PC for studying. I’ve kept the laptop I got six years ago, and recently resurrected it with another stick of RAM and an installation of Xubuntu. With that, it runs nearly as fast as my more modern PC, and does everything I need it to do: word processing, email, and web browsing. The only thing missing was a permanent network connection for it — I’d been borrowing my PC’s Ethernet cable until now. I finally ordered a WiFi card for my Freebox, and soon will have my own home WiFi network. But I also wanted a desk to put my laptop on!

Above you can see the result of my repurposing. The desk itself isn’t very pretty, but it was free, as was the chair. I found the trestles and chair on the street, and the tabletop was hanging around in a cupboard when I moved into my apartment a couple of years ago. I’m happy with how everything turned out: I’ll be able to sync my calendar and email on the phone, laptop, and PC, back up documents over the home network I’ll set up, and take notes by hand (I prefer it) on my sunny little desk by the patio window. Bonus: when not in use, the laptop doubles as a bed for Kanoko.

What’s your reaction to this ad? It will depend on several factors: your sensitivity to animals, for instance, but also how much you know about other cultures, as well as a much less obvious factor. I’m willing to bet that many English speakers are thinking “chicken with its head cut off.” What does that saying conjure up? Someone running around frantically. But this chicken isn’t running around.

“Like a chicken with its head cut off” has no literal equivalent in French. An equivalent in panicky meaning would be “être aux cents coups”. This ad appeared in the major French newspaper Libération, and though the text is hard to make out, it has translations in French, namely “Partie terminée” for “Game Over”. So what is a chicken with its head cut off doing in a French ad, when there is no literal equivalent of the English saying?

For one, to French eyes, it’s clearly posed as one of the emblems of France: the Gallic rooster, scientific name Gallus gallus — indeed, it’s an emblem of France in part because of the Latin play on words for “Gallus”, which can mean “Gaul” or “rooster”. The French also like to joke, referring to national pride, that “the cock crows even when standing in its own merde.” The question then becomes, why is a beheaded rooster posed as a symbol of France on a Sony ad with the text “Game Over”?

Well, it appeared in Libération the day after France’s defeat against South Africa in the World Cup. In case anyone doubts the purposeful resemblance, here’s the logo of the French Football Federation (remember, “football” is the word used for “soccer” in Europe):

On this day in 1860, the French flag replaced the duchy of Savoy flag for the first time in Nice. Today that event was celebrated with parachutists and a performance by the Patrouille de France, one of the world’s oldest aerobatic demonstration teams, formed in 1931. I grew up watching air shows at our local airport, and once saw the Blue Angels perform, so I was very much looking forward to today’s festivities. My expectations were far exceeded — the Patrouille de France, led by Virginie Guyot, the first woman ever (in the world) to lead an aerobatic demonstration team, was breathtaking, especially over the background of a particularly beautiful Mediterranean.

Despite there being quite the crowd, I was able to find a spot near the beach and Place Albert 1er, which was where the performances were set to take place. First, a group of 35 parachutists dropped into a formation supposed to be “150″, though we spectators had a hard time making it out in the blazing sun. They landed not far from where I was. Then it was time for the Patrouille de France’s performance.

They took off from Nice’s airport, their smoke trails on, and impressed us all with their first crowd fly-by. I ended up taking loads of photos, which you can browse in this set. My favorite is above, and the following are pretty nice too:
o Smoke trails over the Baie des Anges, showing the beautiful blues the Mediterranean decided to wear today. She doesn’t often look like this!
o Landing approach simulation also shows the gorgeous blues in the sea, and one of the Patrouille de France’s Alpha Jets flying with its landing gear down.
o Concorde formation!
o Threading the needle, although the literal translation of the description given by the announcer would be “flying through the center of a triangle”.
o This formation was neat as well, since the planes were constantly changing position.
o A star for the final formation.

300-odd years ago, Nice was not part of France, but part of the Duchy of Savoy, and later the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont. Duchy of Savoy territories were the last to join France, their annexation in the 1860 Treaty of Turin ratified by a hotly-contested vote that is still the subject of debate today. Calls for secession from France continue, by authors such as Alain Roullier and groups like Liberà Nissa and the harder-right Nissa Rebela, which I photographed for a “politically incorrect” topic in a recent competition here. (The winner was a photograph of someone using a French flag as toilet paper, to put it politely. When that caused an uproar, the winner was stripped of their prize, which was then given to a photograph of a pregnant woman holding a burning cigarette in front of her stomach. All I can say is that if those were the types of photos they were looking for, I’m glad I didn’t win.)

Amidst this debate, celebrations for Nice’s 150th year as part of France are set for this weekend, beginning Friday evening with a traditional bell-casting for the Notre Dame church here. Festivities will end with a flyover by the Patrouille de France on Monday, the day the French flag was raised over the Palais des Ducs de Savoie, today known as the Palais de la Préfecture in Vieux Nice (Old Nice). I’m going to try to make it to all the events and hope to blog them every day from this Friday to next Monday.

Spring has finally begun here, with the arrival of cherry and wisteria blossoms. I took photos of the pink and purple flowers near my home just an hour ago.

In photo-related news, recently a picture I took of the reimbursement statements we get for health care here was linked in a Wired article, which was soon after taken up by The Guardian, in a writeup aptly titled “Stories of healthcare heartbreak hidden away on Flickr”. As a reminder, my photo was part of a post I wrote here on French health care basics.