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Saturday, April 26, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:28 AM:
Marcus is on the Santorum beat big time. Start at the top and scroll down. Marcus is, of course, absolutely on target in his comments on where true conservatives stand on this issue - his conservativeobserver URL is as always appropriate.As for the neocons at National Review, what would one expect? Has Marcus forgotten that patron saint of the conservative movement though he may be, Buckley has a book subtitled "Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist"? Notwithstanding their conservative sentiments, Buckley and NR have long been chary of entrusting the US government with much of anything, including enforcing their conservative beliefs.
The TurkeyBlog, for its part, tilts more libertarian, believing firmly in the conservative axiom that human nature is as it is and won't be changed by new man, Soviet man or any other such utopian (dystopic?) idea. But what one does about that is a different question. The TurkeyBlog opposes incest, bestiality and child molestation on libertarian, rather than conservative, grounds - the affected are not in a position to defend their liberty or truly give consent, because of immaturity, omnipresent coercion, and outright inability to speak at all. Homosexuality, on the other hand, may be an abomination, an evil, or whatever. But between consenting adults, it is consensual and the adults in question don't need the state trying to save their souls. As for prostitution, the one other one that is seemingly a-ok if the court can't pronounce on the homosexuality, Marcus and I had an exchange some time ago in which I argued that the circumstances in which prostitution occur almost invariably fail to meet the test for free or freely chosen interactions, before the morals question was even undertaken. If it were, the moral sensibilities that come with my conservative worldview would lead me to denounce as vile, repulsive and even evil, but my libertarian instincts would leave me wary of celebrating the state for restoring morality by criminalizing it. The state may assure greater order and safety with the criminalization of prostitution, but if it's doing it for Jesus, then it's over the bounds.
That said, Santorum ought not be canned. As Marcus notes, he speaks for a lot of Republicans - many more than will have the nerve to put their name to such sentiments in our politically correct times. I am not, of course, among those Republicans, but I'm aware that my party is pretty split on the matter and don't think those with whom I disagree should be summarily booted anymore than they should be able to boot me. This party, like all parties, needs to figure out where - if anywhere - it stands, with those truly committed to the party understanding that the only way to be on the winning side of every intra-party battle is to split the union into 260 million parties of one. Given the impracticality of this, we'd best stick by our representatives in order to assure that our broader agenda is implemented, while negotiating finer points as they come.
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posted by gbarto at 1:56 AM:
Natalie Solent to bear Thomas Sowell's children?Okay. Maybe she was just really impressed by one of his columns. Go read why.
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posted by gbarto at 1:49 AM:
A Dog's Life has thoughts on artificial oil.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:39 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: American warning to Shiites and Iran. Rumsfeld put both on notice that a pro-Iran regime was not on the list of acceptable outcomes of our efforts. The Iranians, for their part, announced the US better not cross into their borders while patrolling Iraq. It is worth noting that a pro-Iran regime would not only stand in opposition to US leanings; it would run contrary to the desires of a pretty goodly share of the Iranian people.
Le Figaro: Drugs: Must the laws be changed? See below for Libé's take.
Libération: Under decriminalization, repression. Says Libé, while users won't go to prison anymore, the methods used to make people stay clean might be worse, including confiscation of personal property, etc.
Ouest-France: Finally, Ouest-France tells us the unions aren't happy with the new retirement proposals.
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posted by gbarto at 1:22 AM:
In Basra, Spoils of Looting Fill MarketAnd we were all worried about the transition to democratic capitalism. They're already on the way. Now, when the stuff starts showing up on eBay to target the more lucrative American and European markets, we'll know they're almost home.
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posted by gbarto at 1:19 AM:
N. Korea Threats Prod BeijingPyongyang's declarated nuclear intentions pushes China closer to U.S.
– Glenn Kessler and John Pomfret
Interesting. I didn't know Bush did headlines for the Post. Anyway, given what North Korea has declarated, even China really can't act like they're doing anything other than seeking attention and blackmailing.
We'll be wise to watch North Korea's borders, make sure no large packages are shipped, and otherwise let that country's implosion continue apace.
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Friday, April 25, 2003
posted by gbarto at 10:55 AM:
Not Such a Good IdeaPyongyang's nuclear confession may alienate China, its only friend
To the contrary, I hear China is sending a greeting committee from Beijing to show Kim Jong-Il how much they care.
(Major SARS Quarantine in Beijing
4,000 must remain in their homes)
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posted by gbarto at 2:57 AM:
French News Headlines:Le Monde shows the 8 of Spades. That's right, Tareq Aziz turned himself in to the Americans.
Le Figaro: Retirement: François Fillon on course for meeting with reform. And he actually said France's current societal model cannot be saved following the current trajectory.
Libé more cynically asserts, Fillon sells his potion.
Ouest-France also leads with the Social Minister's appearance on the tv program, "100 minutes to convince" to sell his reform package. They say there were no big surprises but a fair number of opportunities to specify exactly what's planned.
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posted by gbarto at 2:33 AM:
Tariq Aziz SurrendersFormer deputy prime minister turns himself in as U.S. tries to organize interim administration.
This, for me, is confirmation that Saddam is either dead or might as well be, because Aziz has the connections to know and wouldn't risk being listed as the top surrenderer if he thought Saddam was coming back.
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posted by gbarto at 2:27 AM:
Korea Threatens to Test Or Export Nuclear ArmsPyongyang says it would give up its nuclear programs in return for energy supply. U.S. refuses to negotiate.
Umm... this is nuclear blackmail. So, where's the UN? Where's El Baradei? Of course they're about, but they don't seem to be rushing in to solve this, the way they were ready to take care of the Iraq question.
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Thursday, April 24, 2003
posted by gbarto at 5:10 AM:
N. Korea: U.S. Headed Toward WarNegotiators holding second day of nuke talks in Beijing
Translation: We really need international intervention... now.
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posted by gbarto at 5:08 AM:
Winnie Mandela Guilty of FraudNelson Mandela's ex-wife convicted of theft and fraud involving $120,000
How the old icons fall.
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posted by gbarto at 3:16 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Suicide bombing at Israeli train station.
Libé: Nervousness Among French Jews: They fear the consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and their own radicalization.
Le Figaro: How Bush and his team want to sanction France. Essentially, by shutting them out of NATO planning through parliamentary maneuvers and by no longer modifying our actions to keep France happy. Minor and subtle, but not good for a country that prides itself on being a player.
Ouest-France: Powell threatens to isolate France.
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posted by gbarto at 3:04 AM:
When is a boycott worth the trouble?Below, I write about the Dixie Chicks controversy and the fan boycott. I thought it would be worthwhile to offer some more general observations.
A good boycott requires three elements:
1. An overlap between users of a product and people unhappy with the makers of that product
2. A willingness on the part of the users to forego use of the product to express their displeasure with the company
3. A plausible remedy the company can make
Without the first two, you can't effect a boycott. Without the third, it won't accomplish anything. All three of these must obtain. Take the Nike mess from a few years ago. American consumers of Nike products were upset by the use of child labor in sweatshops to make their shoes - condition 1. They threatened to buy shoes from more child-friendly corporations instead - condition 2. Nike won back their trust by setting higher standards for their plants and allowing third-party monitoring of their compliance with consumer wishes. I don't recall if we actually got to the out and out boycott stage, but the point is that with these three conditions seemingly met, Nike was backed into changing its corporate behavior.
Without the three pillars, though, boycotts don't work. Seniors Against Pornography can boycott the local strip joint all they want, but number one doesn't obtain, so the boycott goes nowhere. AIDS patients may hate big pharma, but they'll die without their drugs. Condition two doesn't obtain, so no boycott.
The Dixie Chicks and French wine actions are useless boycotts because they can't meet the third test. French vintners are not the French government. They can't change France's policies significantly. Raising hell with a French business does not threaten the French government; it just usurps its normal territory. Maybe there is the possibility, longer term, of breaking the French elite by breaking the masses and showing that it can't take care of them. We'll leave this boycott as a feel-good effort that - if stuck to - may have long term results.
The Dixie Chicks, however, have no remedy to offer. If the thoughts of Natalie Maines offend you, you can stop buying her stuff and thus limit the material comfort in which she thinks them, but that's it. What do you want? A changed mind? There are only three outcomes: 1) she sells out, meaning that what she says doesn't matter. 2) she genuinely changes her mind, meaning that her convictions are so muddled that what she says doesn't matter. 3) she takes the artist's pose and proclaims she won't change her mind, meaning what the public says doesn't matter. None of the three is remotely satisfactory to anybody whose thoughts surpass unreflective jingoism. There is no plausible remedy. The only thing that could really improve the situation is if she said nothing whatsoever, letting those moments on a stage in Europe disappear into irrelevancy. Which is not going to happen if we keep selling stories about what this country singer thinks.
So let us explore the one and only successful boycott outcome for Dixie Chick activism: drawing a line between the country music and the activism and refusing to buy the second. The remedy there would be for the Dixie Chicks to get back to singing and decide to get out of the commentary business. This is accomplished by not buying the product, perhaps, but only if so doing will change the tune, so to speak. As we know, with the arts community this never works. What does work is stony silence. Polite but muffled applause and looks of confusion - hey, Wilbur, I thought you said they were gonna sing - are what's required to burst this bubble, not the elevation of the political thought of Natalie Maines into a cultural crisis.
Before undertaking a boycott, the three pillars I've listed must always be tested to see if they'll bear the weight of the boycott. Unless they will, your boycott won't effect change. It will just make you a fool.
Case in point: the Dixie Chicks still have the number one country album in America today. And the headline on Fox is that they're firing back at their critics (see below). So much for the boycott.
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posted by gbarto at 2:08 AM:
Dixie Chicks Fire Back at CriticsLead singer says she spoke against Bush, war out of frustration
Methinks the lady doth protesteth too much. As do her critics. She's just a country singer, for God's sake. That said, country singers, like rock singers, have a product that has a certain appeal to a certain demographic, and the "my country, right or wrong" demographic and country music listener demographic strongly overlap. Natalie Maines fronts a group called the Dixie Chicks; the first word of the title hearkens to a time when the South was different, a time when it was genteel and agricultural and... enslaved and lynched blacks and fought a war over the right to do so. Tom Lehrer - to name another liberal songwiter - captured this in "I wanna go back to Dixie," which goes in part like this:
I wanna go back to DixieTom Lehrer said it, not me, so don't bother to write if you love old Dixie. My fiancée is from New Orleans so I must like the place too. But a lot of people don't. You could say that the Dixie Chicks were highly insensitive to these people in choosing their name. Insensitive to those who think of Dixie and the Confederate Flag as being intertwined. However, the name speaks to those who have an image of the South - Civil War and all - as a place of courtly landowners and of good ol' boys and of something... different... from the cold, business-oriented North.
Take me back to dear ol' Dixie
That's the only li'l ol' place for li'l ol' me
Ol' times there are not forgotten
Whuppin' slaves and sellin' cotton
And waitin' for the Robert E. Lee
It was never there on time
...
Oh, poll tax
How I love ya, how I love ya
My dear old poll tax
...
I wanna talk with southern gentlemen
And put my white sheet on again
I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years
The land of the boll weevil
Where the laws are medieval
...
Be it ever so decadent
There's no place like home
People who romanticize the South probably thought that Dixie Chicks was a great name for a few Southern gals belting out some songs. I don't know enough about them to know if any of them thought the name was ironic or post-modern or whatever buzzword is the rage these days, but there's no question that they got good ol' boy and good ol' gal listeners from the name. Maybe Natalie Maines didn't realize that people who could romanticize the South in loving the Dixie Chicks would also be able to romanticize the USA into a nation in whose actions they unstintingly believed, but you'd think a girl on a European tour would be more sophisticated about such things.
And so it is that the Dixie Chicks are afraid that free speech is threatened if a group selling an image sees its sales drop off when that image is tainted. And we see record company execs fretting that their singers will kill the images they've spent big bucks crafting. And we see radio stations making a mockery over one of the more reliable artists on their playlists (from what I understand) for a few days of buzz. And we see people who ought to know better trying to put so much significance into bubblegum country that they'll give up one of the cooler sounds of the genre out of political sensitivity. Yeesh. And this is country!
Though these pages will show me to be fairly conservative and unquestionably pro-USA, I must confess that I have not purged Stockhausen from my CD collection, and have no intention of doing so. I will not do him the pleasure of letting him think that what he has to say about political events has any impact whatsoever upon the reality in which we live. John Adams could follow up Nixon Goes to China with Bush Goes to Hell and "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" will remain in my collection because it's a fine example of what modern composers can and should do musically but rarely do. Wiser Dixie Chicks' fans will likewise buy the CDs if they like the sound, not if they don't, and politely let the gals know they're ready for more music if Natalie Maines mistakes another concert venue for the Hardball College Tour.
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posted by gbarto at 1:31 AM:
Teacher's Aide Banned Over CrossWoman contests 1-year suspension from work because of necklace
In which we confront the question, who's the bigger ass? The school district that fires an employee for wearing a cross too visibly or the teacher's aide who refuses to tuck it into her shirt despite several requests?
A pox on both their houses. The one has made a mockery of free expression, the other out of religious committment.
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posted by gbarto at 1:26 AM:
Homicide Bomber Kills One in IsraelSecurity guard dies trying to block Palestinian attacker from train station
Our sympathies for the guard's family, to whom we all owe our gratitude for his sacrifice in fighting terror. He is a true hero, as are his fellows.
Incidentally, Al-Aqsa - an arm of Yassir Arafat's Fatah movement - denies responsibility but an anonymous caller who said he was with Al-Aqsa claimed responsibility. Does this mean a) Arafat's people are still doing the terror thing at his bidding in spite of yesterday's promises to work for peace, b) people who disagree with Arafat's moves are trying to embarrass Arafat into returning to extremism by killing any goodwill he builds up, c) someone unconnected to Al-Aqsa is trying to embarrass Arafat by making it seem like his people are still involved in killing for their own purposes.
The correct answer, of course, is d) we're still working with this guy when no credible judge of his character and his movement's character could rule out any of the above or actually promise peace with Israel?
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Wednesday, April 23, 2003
posted by gbarto at 1:57 PM:
Shiites' Power Surprises U.S.Bush team hadn't expected force of Islamic insistence on leadership role.
– Glenn Kessler and Dana Priest
I suppose we should have expected this. But we do still have one hell of an army over there if need be. In the meantime, our answer should be the same as it's always been: we're building a democracy where the people can choose. Cicero has been right in his regular insistence that we're going to have to be there a while, and we will. We should inform the Shiites of this and inform them as well that if they make this go poorly for us, we will not have any question as to just how irreligious or secular the governmental system we set up and acclimate the people to will be, that if they want any provision for what it means to be a Muslim in the new government they'll work with us and show that they can handle it.
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posted by gbarto at 1:47 PM:
Palestinians OK Reforms Vital to New Peace TalksArafat and prime minister-designate Abbas reach a deal on a new cabinet.
– John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
When it comes to Arafat, I'll believe it when I see it. But regardless, it does appear that one Middle East thug has caught loud and clear the message of Saddam's ouster.
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posted by gbarto at 1:34 AM:
Very astute piece by Den Beste on why France is breaking. For distraught Francophiles, I have more bad news: while the Muslim angle is new, the decaying society where overeducated know-nothings micromanage things they don't understand is not a false conception of Francophobes; my poli-sci prof painted the same picture of French society and governance in 1993 in my comparative constitutional government seminar at the Université de Haute Bretagne in Rennes.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:08 AM:
We're going to start the evening's blogging with the French news, because France had some big news today:Says Le Monde's headline, Iraq: division at UN over sanctions. France has proposed a provisory lifting of sanctions now that the regime they targeted is quite defunct. Washington, of course, was frosted that they weren't offering a permanent lifting, but that may be for show, because this means France has given up on the idea that the UN and the UN alone will get to decide whether their sweetheart deal with Saddam will survive Saddam's ouster (on this, TurkeyBlog likes Safire's suggestion that New Iraq will honor Saddam's deals when Putin honors the Czar's debts).
Le Figaro: "Pneumopathy" : Five Reasons to be Afraid. Also in the AFP breaking news box, "The United States Wants to Punish France." The headline is there because Colin Powell made it clear that the status of our relationship with France was under review and he was not tending toward a positive assessment, but maybe the headline should have said this. As it stands, the headline is as incongruous in a breaking news box as an announcement that Liberace was gay - we'd already figured it out, thanks.
Libé: Embargo against Iraq almost over. It's interesting that Le Monde sees the tension and Libé sees the endgame; makes you wonder which one is truly the more sophisticated newspaper. It's as though Le Monde has felt the need to descend into self-parodying "searching" commentary in an effort to make sure that NYT has some company at the bottom sometimes.
Because Ouest-France is down right now, we'll give you La Nouvelle République's latest headline (link at left) : Demonstration of force by Shiites at Kerbala. It's the same as everyone else's headline last night.
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Tuesday, April 22, 2003
posted by gbarto at 8:56 AM:
The Chron's Jane Ganahl demonstrated yesterday the kind of article for which we've come to count upon that newspaper. In it she declares of Pearl Jam:A few fans left the concert in a huff, and some are even calling for a boycott of the band's records. Here's a news bulletin for them, and I'll try not to use big words: Pearl Jam is a band with radical politics. If this bothers you, don't go to their bloody concerts.She may or may not have noticed that not going to their concerts is exactly what those with an aversion to Pearl Jam's radical politics had chosen to do, if only ex post facto. Ganahl also says,
[The first repercussions] fell on the Dixie Chicks -- not exactly known for their radical outspokenness -- when Natalie Maines said she was embarrassed to be from the same state as Dubya. The response was the country music equivalent of "Farenheit 451": Their CDs were crushed by tractors in various cities.Perhaps Ms. Ganahl failed to read the book, else she would remember that the burning of books came after seizure by the government and was part of a campaign by the government to destroy documents that raised questions about its view of the world. The Dixie Chicks were the "victims" of people who paid their own money to destroy their own CDs. No one is being hauled away for listening to the Dixie Chicks, the President is not leading hate rallies or any of the other dystopic tropes.
Ganahl closes in saying,
The good news is that the war is winding down. Will free speech start to flourish again along with Iraq? It's too soon to tell. In the meantime, I'm calling my favorite record company rep to pitch this compilation [that she described earlier in the column]. It's sure to sell.I don't think that free speech has exactly fallen apart. If people use their liberty to say unpleasant things about what people have done with their right to free expression, it may offend the liberal sensibilities of Ganahl, but they have a right to express themselves that way all the same.
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posted by gbarto at 8:35 AM:
Shiites Worship in KarbalaHundreds of thousands of pilgrims gather at a holy shrine in Iraq for a ritual that was banned for decades.
Here's what the Shiites we mentioned in the French news were largely up to.
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posted by gbarto at 2:44 AM:
Cicero says:And, if we aren't going to seriously occupy Iraq for a while, hoping to use that time to ensure that, when we leave, it won't fall into the hands of the Jihad and be even less firendly for us than it was before, then we should just declare victory and withdraw from the whole of the Middle East.He's dead wrong on the last point for reasons made beautifully clear in a delightful riff in Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Notes Rushdie, when we left Vietnam, many thought we had lost the war. But in fact, after we left there remained a Trojan horse. When the Vietnamese settled down and stopped paying attention, our most devastating shock troops emerged, stormed and occupied the country. Specifically, rock and roll, blue jeans, fast cars, and the father of them all, consumerist capitalism. Nothing short of the death of everyone in the Middle East who saw the footage of Saddam's statue coming down, saw the easy confidence with which Arab journalists could talk to our troops, saw the way that demonstrations against our occupation were greeted with shrugs of "they're allowed to do that now," will - to mix metaphors - put the genie in the bottle. President Bush is right. So long as we are a beacon of hope and freedom in the world, we will have enemies in the world. Jihad is at the top of the list, with its idea that submission, not freedom, is what the world needs and it will be our enemy until one or the other perishes. So, to quote by turns Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ronald Reagan: Let freedom ring and may God bless America.
ALL of it.
And announce to the world that peace in Palestine is a matter for the parties direclty involved to work out - or not - on their own, with no kibbitzing from us at all.
And watch the Muslim Jihad everywhere lose interest in attacking the United States.
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posted by gbarto at 2:30 AM:
Here come your French news headlines:Le Monde: Shiites in Kerbala, Jay Garner in Iraq. About Muslim pilgrimages ongoing as well as protests demanding a Shiite leader's release from captivity even as the US administration sets up. Le Monde says the Shiites' actions show they're willing to strain the political system even as the US sets up. It does not ask how this squares with the assertions of American oppression, etc., but it seems to me that those trying to argue that they're standing up to us are having a hard time of it since our attitude has largely been to cheerlead the discovery of independent voices, even if we don't go along with them.
Le Figaro: The Awakening of the Shiites. About the same.
Libération: Spigots open on Shiite fervor.
Ouest-France: The French don't reject politics - April 21st: barometer of malaise. It was, of course, a year ago that Jean-Marie LePen made his surprise showing in the French presidential elections. The French are feeling a little better about government now, but not much. Also, a nice editorial, which argues that France has replaced political thought with political feeling, with anti-American protests being an emotional reaction against power by people who are discomfited with reality, not a serious response to the issues at hand. Suggests the editorial, the anti-American protests are like the French electoral cycle of last year where Chirac went from villain to hero when he went from representing power to being Le Pen's antithesis - there is no active thought, only lashing out from crisis to crisis.
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posted by gbarto at 2:08 AM:
American Airlines Chief ApologizesCarty admits he 'stumbled' when he didn't inform workers of perks for execs
Oops. All that was missing was the "Capitalist Pig" lapel pin on his suit jacket. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid our corporate leaders can be. Maybe because they were taught by leftist college profs who made them think business was cheating people - because that's how the profs saw it - and they tried to live the image. I don't know.
Newer business texts have started noting that the best salesman isn't the one who could sell ice cubes to the eskimoes because a good salesman or saleswoman's number one product is the trust that builds lasting business relationships - i.e. you don't get ahead by screwing your customers out of an extra nickel before they realize they've been had but by selling good products at reasonable margins so they'll keep ordering from you. Likewise, corporations are going to have to learn that they need worker goodwill because their workers are the face the public sees. When I think of American Airlines, I don't think of the shiny planes or the stock price or the rank of the company. I think of the time five years ago when I waited till midnight to take off for what was supposed to be a five o'clock flight and the desk staff was surly about it and didn't even remember to hand out meal vouchers to those of us stranded in O'Hare that night. American employees have, by and large, struck me as having a chip on their shoulder about the enterprise and while my politics make me want to be suspicious of union agitating or inflated senses of entitlement, the company's management have by their greed and stupidity made the attitude understandable and even seemingly justified. A pox on these idiots for the damage they've done not only to air travel but to the integrity of capitalism.
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posted by gbarto at 1:54 AM:
Good:IRS Can't Share Info on Illegals
Agency prohibited from supplying data to other government offices
As far as I'm concerned, if they've got jobs and are paying taxes, we should leave them alone anyway.
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Monday, April 21, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:26 AM:
We mentioned the arrest of Saddam's son in law earlier. Meanwhile, giving UN aid to the Iraqis seems like a good idea. Other than that, not much making news tonight, but let's see what the French have to say:French news headlines:
Le Monde: Iraq: The American Administration Sets Up.
Le Figaro: Pneumonia Epidemic Out of Control in China.
Libération: Sarkozy Gives Lesson in Republicanism. The Interior Minister was widely applauded as he opened the first Islamic conference sponsored by the French government. Then he announced that religious concerns aside, Muslim women would have to remove their veils for the photos for the IDs. Things went downhill after.
Ouest-France: Christians Nervous, Shiites Reassured. Because Saddam's insistence on order led to the protection of Christians as one of the things necessary for keeping the Shiites in line. And now? One more reason the US will have to stay a while.
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Sunday, April 20, 2003
posted by gbarto at 1:18 PM:
My fiancée reports, regarding SARS, that Japan is being almost as secretive about it as China, this according to Japanese people whom she teaches.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:10 PM:
Report: Saddam's Son-in-Law SurrendersThat's good news. Meanwhile, from the President:
Bush: Saddam Shouldn't 'Pop His Head Up' If Alive
One presumes that Saddam is smart enough to notice that every time it seems he might be somewhere, that place very shortly ceases to exist. Will he become a mystery man, rumored to be alive though widely thought dead? If he is, indeed, alive, this is the smartest action he could take. I think it's safe to say at this point that the only place Saddam might evade detection is if he got a job (drumroll) as an American airport security officer. Watch closely as you're headed to the gate, America.
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posted by gbarto at 1:05 PM:
Very late French news update so we'll see if Figaro and Libé are updated yet too.Le Monde: China and SARS: Analysis and Punishments. The Health Minister and Mayor of Beijing both stepped down or were fired.
Le Figaro: not updated
Libé: Libé has a One-Year Ago piece about last year's French election cycle, which started... one year ago. You can click the links up top on that election cycle to find out more than you'd ever want to know.
Ouest-France: Ouest-France leads with Easter, the Resurrection:
Pâques, la Résurrection
"Easter is the greatest holiday in the universe," wrote novelist Virgil Georghiu. Christians carry its memory. From generation to generation, they pass along its story: Jesus betrayed, condemned by a false trial, put to death as a criminal amid the cries of an angry mob, enclosed in a tomb, then seen again alive by his friends who could barely believe their own eyes.
For Christians, this event transformed the perspective through which to see human life. Death remains a sorrowful mystery but it is not the last word on existence. No longer is it an impenetrable wall down which our tears run. To the contrary, it's days are numbered because the return of Christ outside death announces that of all men and thus of Humanity.
In the eyes of many, this perspective reveals History as an Aurora announcing a new day. It invites peoples to care for one another, to step outside their egoism and their jealousy in order to build Peace on new foundations: cooperation among peoples by development, respect for people, the sharing of natural treasures...
On this day, Christians celebrate the joy of Easter, which signifies passage: passage from the shadow of the world to the light, from the darkness of the human condition to the recreation of the being that regains life wake of the Creator.
In the great Jewish tradition, God carries many names and many are the faces by which he reveals Himself to man. One of these names signifies the Place. One can hear this name as the Place for life, as the Place for return, as the space created where man can exhibit his humanity.
Jeanne Emmanuelle HUTIN.
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