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OBJET TROUVÉ

Holiday

It is Saint-Jean Baptiste Day - a holiday - where I live and a very important one weather wise: it is close enough to the Summer solciste of June 21 to be candidate for our one day of summer, that perfect day with glorious sunshine, just enough heat, a bit of wind, no rain... Maybe not this year. Still, a holiday at a reasonable time of year.

So I am going to come out and admit it: I enjoy watching, on television, the animated series King of the Hill. It is a guilty pleasure and it took me a while to get into it. First I had to get over the notion that I could be square enough to relate to these people. Hank Hill is painfully whatever he is. Peggy Hill is a cube, only made likable by her lack of intelligence and occasional moments of human compassion, which are rare. Their thirteen-year old son is obese, and a fuddy-duddy in the making. Hank is worried he might become a homosexual but he needn't: the kid won't evolve enough to ever be that imaginative.

The secondary characters are great. I luuuve that guy too blind to see his wife is cheating on him, an exterminator who always manages to overcome his financial woes through imaginative projection. The obese neighbor on the verge of tears, the ladies' man who used to like sports, they are all icons, embodied insights into human culture.

And this is the second level of appreciation. The makers of the series are not poking gentle fun at these people, they are calling their game. Peggy Hill's feet are too big to wear delicate high-heeled shoes and Frank is indulgent when she 'finds a pair'. Such moments would be absolutely forbidden on Sex in the City. Those writers are getting away with murder.

There have been twelve seasons of this program and the kid is always thirteen. So there have been many opportunities to explore the frozen-in-time moment that the series represents. This is where Friends finally crashed into the ridiculous. Phoebe is pregnant, for heaven's sake: grow up people.

So last night I actually became a wiser person from watching this program. They were airing a totally inappropriate episode - a Christmas dinner - where Hank's senile father comes to visit and ends up demolishing half the place showing Frank he hadn't built or equipped his house strongly enough. "You have to tell him you love him," counselled Peggy, who reads a lot of magazines. The dénouement was outrageously implausible, with a past American President making a cameo animated appearance. But the whole mess did make me a better parent: all those caution warnings to the child who is making a social world for him or herself. Of course it is not sturdy enough, a child is a child. That's how it goes.

I will never probably see all 235 episodes (to date). I found the one which might enlighten me.

Oil Prices

Iowa Tornado

Paper Airplane

www.spiegel.de/video/video-31800.html

Fiat Electric

Go Phoenix Lander!

Meteo-France

From Le Figaro
11.06.2008

THE CHILD HIT BY LIGHTNING REMAINS IN A PRECARIOUS STATE

Doctors at the La Timone hospital in Marseille, where the boy was transported Tuesday night, refuse to make a prognostic. His five friends, also hit by lightning, have returned to their homes.

Lightning struck Tuesday six children on a football field at Thor (Vaucluse) situated approximately fifteen kilometers from Avignon. The children, all aged 11 or 12, were in training with their Club, the Union sportive thoroise. The trainer stopped the session because of a storm and it was as they were regaining the change rooms that they were struck by lightning.

One of the children, seriously hit and who experienced cardio-pulmonary arrest, was transported in the evening to La Timone hospital in Marseille. He is today in a «precarious state» according to a spokesperson for Public Assistance - Hôpitaux de Marseille(AH-HM). «He is on life-support. Doctors refuse to make a prognostic», she added. The five other children, more lightly hurt but two of whom fainted, were hospitalized in Avignon. They were returned home Tuesday evening.

VIOLENT STORMS

The violent storms which touched Tuesday evening on the South and Center of the country also caused numerous material damages: many hundreds of houses were made uninhabitable, following flooding and mudslides, and firemen were called. In the Southwest, one hundred houses were damaged in the village of Roquefort. In neighboring Communes, streams ran over, causing mudslides and floods. Certain roads were cut. There were also violent storms in the Gers, giving rise to floods and mudslides. Some forty firemen made 25 interventions in the evening, in particular near Auch where a camping site was flooded at Roquelaure. Three campers had to find new lodgings. Wednesday morning, the water-level had gone back down in the Southwest.

Same causes and consequences at Dijon, were firemen were called over 350 times mainly to deal with basement floodings and in commercial establishments after a violent storm which touched on the Bourgignonne Capital. There were no victims but some fifteen people had to to evacuated from a building in Chenove, in the suburbs of Dijon, because of a fire started as a consequence of lightning. In the Ain region, where water rose some 1,50 meters in certain places, firemen were called 150 times because of flooding.

METEO-FRANCE lifted Tuesday evening its orange alert (level 3 out of 4) for six Departments in the Western part of the country, but announced a new one, yellow, for flooding in two Departments of the Southwest of France, in effect for 24 hours starting Wednesday morning.

Lehman

From Le Monde
10.06.08
by Anne Michel

PROBLEMS AT LEHMAN'S SHOW THAT THE CRISIS IS FAR FROM OVER

In an America recently traumatized by the bail-out in extremis of the banking concern Bear Stearns, in March, the ground started to give under another Wall Street institution, Lehman Brothers, Monday June 9.

The fourth in importance business bank in the U.S. stunned observers of financial markets, by announcing a loss of 2,7 billion dollars (1,7 billion euros) for the second quarter of a time-shifted exercise, going from March to May. It is the first deficit reported since going to the Market, in 1994, and especially troubling because the loss is ten times that expected by analysts.

In order to re-assure its investors, Lehman Brothers immediately decided to raise 6 billion dollars in capital, from institutional investors. A money import meant to keep the institution afloat, after a first re-capitalization of 4 billion in April.

While a number of independent funds made offers to Lehman - including the State funds of Singapur, Koweït and Dubaï, the bank founded in 1850 to finance the development of the American economy preferred going to more classic and familiar investors, found on markets. Given the success of pre-investments, it estimates that 10 billion could easily have been found from these 'friendly' investors.

After Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch or the financial giant Citygroup - whose downfall are ongoing - now it is the famous Lehman concern caught in the maelstrom of sub-primes, those infamous high risk real estate credits discerned without rhyme or reason in the years 2000, on the other side of the Atlantic.

Under the strain of a massive depreciation of Assets, the bank, which employs 20 000 people has had to, an extremely rare event, show a negative Earnings in the second trimester. The establishment also paid for bad arbitrage in its risk covering operations.

'We have suffered but we are going forward', proposed, on Monday, one of the officers of the bank. 'We have sold the equivalent of 130 billion in assets at market price, and in so doing, cleaned up our financial position, reduced our level of indebtedness and risk exposure, and brought our liquid assets to record levels.'

The difficulties experienced by Lehman Brothers are proof that the financial crisis is far from over, as could have hoped investors on financial markets during a brief period of betterment, in May. 'For months now, central banks have put in considerable efforts to re-assure us that there will not be a systemic breakdown' enjoins us the economist Paul Jorion. 'They have not lied to us, but they have been selective in the information they have presented us indeed giving priority to good news and keeping us in the dark about the bad.'

M. Jorion has published, in May, a work on the financial crisis -L'Implosion. La finance contre l'économie: ce qu'annonce et révèle la crise des subprimes. Fayard. - breakdown is well present, in the background. ' One can say that all is well for one two or three weeks', he argues, 'but the system as a whole is very fragile. Saving Bear Stearns did not change the underlying situation, which is still serious. Sub-prime credits are no longer being let but the American real estate market keeps plunging.'

Romain Burnand, co-president of the Moneta group, thinks, for his part, the 'the crisis is on-going, albeit in an attenuated fashion. We are not dealing with new losses', he explains, 'but always, losses linked to sub-primes.'

French bankers agree on this visions of things. They believe that, after a period of panic in financial circles, we came close to a real break-down, but that we are now in a more normal downturn, close to textbook conditions. An economic crisis follows a financial one, characterized by expensive oil and raw materials, which will make everyone poorer and up the number of bankruptcies, as well as fuel inflation. 'We are entering a dark, cheerless period', believes one such banker.

The unknown factor is what effect all this will have on the real economy. What would transpire if, after buyers, real estate promoters became incapable of paying off their debts? Banks have no doubt accumulated war chests in past years. But they have much to fear from a crisis no one has seen, or wanted to see, coming.


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WTF (Oil)

From: Le Figaro
06.06.2008
by A. Panizzo

THE PRICE OF OIL TOPS 139 DOLLARS

The price for a barrel of crude oil went over 138 dollars for the first time in New York Friday, with a jump of more than 10 dollars.

Prices for the Black Gold, in less than two days, have broken all previous records and ended the appreciable lowering experienced at the beginning of last week.

In the context of a remarkable weakening of the dollar, a barrel of «light sweet crude», New York side, finished the week up 10,75 dollars at 138,54, after having gone over momentarily the 139 dollar mark (139,12).

In London, North Sea Brent for the same deadline bested its record, to 138,12 dollars per barrel. The previous record for the barrel traded in New York was 135,09 and that for the Brent on the London market was 135,14. Since Thursday, markets are under the influence of a lowering of the dollar with respect to the Euro in the wake of a declaration by the president of the European Central Bank, which opened the way to stronger monetary policy in Europe.

The fall of the dollar, which greatly influences oil prices, worsened again on Friday after bad employment figures for America, which show a net increase in unemployment for May. In effect, unemployment was at its highest in almost four years in May in the United States, at 5,5%, compared to the 5,1 expected by analysts. Nonetheless, the American Economy only lost 49,000 jobs rather than the expected 60 000 layoffs. And it is for the sixth month in a row that the United States have lost jobs.

As well, according to the national oil agency of Libya, still higher prices are to come. It is estimated by that institution that oil should soon attain a record price of 140 dollars a barrel. Business bankers Morgan Stanley see it even higher. Their estimate is that the barrel of crude could reach 150 dollars by July 4.

Australia

Opinion and Democracy

DEBATE

Is Public Opinion an infantile or senile ill within Democracy?
Le Monde 31.05.08.

The Pierre Mendes-France Institute organized, on Thursday May 29, a debate on Public Opinion and Democracy of which we are publishing the principal segments: is it here a question of a modern stage of development within political life or are we dealing with a form of degeneracy dangerous to the Republic?

Régis Debray is a writer, director of the publication 'Médium'; Jacques Julliard is a historian and journalist.

Jacques Julliard: The situation which I have sought to describe in la Reine du Monde (Flammarion, 128p.) - Queen of the World - is that we are presently witnessing a very profound shift in the nature of Democracy. The novel element which Universal Suffrage introduced, in 1848 and then with the Third Republic, was entirely based on a system of representation. Today all 'goes down' as if the notion of General Will were to be actualized in two concurrent fashions: on the one hand with elections and the designation of Representatives through Universal Suffrage, on the other through the increasing weight of Public Opinion. There have always been Opinion currents within political systems. What is new, is the on-going character of pressure from Opinion and especially that it now has the means of being heard.

The consequences are spectacular. Opinion is stronger than politicians, as we witnessed during the European Referendum on may 29, 2005. It is more and more stronger than Parliament: Polls are no longer a measuring instrument, they are political facts in and of themselves, like a vote, and every time a politician has to choose between his electoral mandate and the judgement of polls, he almost always goes with the latter. More serious from the point of view of Democracy,Opinion has the possibility to go against the Law and win over Republican Legality, as was the case with the Contrat première embauche (First Employment Contract) in 2006. Elections themselves are touched by the phenomenon, now that Primaries designed to choose candidates have come to take an increasingly important place.

In France at least, Representative Democracy was conceived from the beginning as a rampart against Universal Suffrage: once citizens have designated their Representatives, their duty is to be silent. This is what they no longer accept.

Régis Debray: The expression "a Democracy of Opinion" seems friendly enough: it is difficult to be against Democracy; as for Opinion, everyone has his or her own. It is a different matter when one speaks of a Republic of Rumour or of Appearance, or of a Politics-by-Polls system. Let us take the example of Polls. Are they conveyors of expertise? No, in reality they have become oracles and even referees: instead of opening up the debate, they close it down and have the last word, as if, beyond the numbers, there was no longer any need to talk.

Yet Democracy is not a dictatorship of popularity. Today, becomes legitimate only that which is popular and this is self-reinforcing. Who sponsors Polls? The media. Who comments on them? The media again. And who takes position with respect to them? Our alleged leaders. As for the politically committed, they vote for this or that candidate who looks good in the Polls. In short, Politics looses itself within Sociology; it is no longer a more or less reasoned choice of societal direction, after debate and deliberation.

But Jacques Julliard is right on an essential point. Democracy, at any given moment, will bear the marks of its technical supports: it appears in a society where there are trains, newspapers, and parties around newspapers. This is in fact the Bronze Age of Democracy. We are now in the Age of the Electron. After the printed page republic(election + education + newspapers), we have gone on with the fifth republic, to Television Democracy, that bonaparte-flavoured medium which works with the close-up and the "As for me". With the advent of Internet, we are witnessing the appearance of a new form of opinion, idiosyncratic, network-driven, and disseminated, which is anything but hierarchical and centralized.

It is the rule, every age over-runs the preceding media. We saw it with printing which disseminated the Bible to all and lead to the downgrading of the clergy. With the Internet, it is not "We are all priests" but "We are all journalists!", with a similar downgrading of opinion leaders, that brotherhood now dispossessed of monopoly in the representation of Opinion. We can glimpse at the horizon, the end of newspapers. Thus the end of the intellectual, that thinker who practices journalism.

The ensuing destabilization is considerable. Is it liberation? I am not at all certain. For that system is currently putting in place Democracy-by-Plebiscite, made more palatable by visual support and rendered acceptable in the day-to-day by the use of Polls. This temporal contraction, this disappearance of chronology in favour of the present instant, this dictatorship of emotion and first impression seems to me very dangerous.

Jacques Julliard: At risk of a drift toward Rule-by-Plebiscite? I am less of a pessimist than Régis Debray in his recent essay L'Obscenité démocratique (Flammarion, 86p.) - The democratic obscene. One should not be too pessimistic. Opinion is not always as mindless at it seems. It sometimes has a better sense of the General Advantage than the political class itself, imprisoned in its divisions. Further, there is a self-education process within Public Opinion, like there was one historically within Universal Suffrage. It is true that opinion has something emotional, versatile and badly-informed. Yet these are precisely the three criticisms levelled at Universal Suffrage in the 19th Century, whose adversaries thought was going to lead us to profound disorders. In effect it is Universal Suffrage which was, in France, the principal rampart against all forms of extremism, of both the the Right and Left. This is in line with the very thoughtful analysis offered by de Tocqueville on his return from America: for him, Public Opinion does not lead to division or extremism within society, but to an average opinion, massive and gel-like.

As for the fear that Public Opinion could be manipulated, it brings to mind Pierre Bourdieu's famous remark "There is no such thing as Public Opinion". It is true, Public Opinion is an artifact. is it for all that reprehensible? No, for Democracy itself and its central concepts (the People, Universal Suffrage, etc.) are artifacts. One can thus say here is no such thing as Public Opinion. But one cannot say that it is without influence. This is the best proof of its existence!

Régis Debray: Jacques Julliard paints for us the new smile of Democracy. I for one see a new frown. Once you have a broken-up public performance, fragmented audiences, Opinion in small pieces, and you add a terrific centrifugal force of the type corporation, region or confession, is there still a body of citizens capable of unity around a given spectacle?

This media-opinion dictatorship transforms the government into a day-to-day manager, tending toward the alleged desires of Opinion, to either anticipate or prevent. One thus witnesses, for example, the birth of a type of diplomacy which has an instantaneous emotional reaction to everything (Darfur, Ingrid Betancour, Tibet, etc.) to better deal in the long run with nothing, where one hops from one image to the next without memory and without aim. This augurs badly for the Republic, indeed for Democracy.

Jacques Julliard: Does Opinion-Poll Democracy mean the end of Politics? Maybe. I have a tendency to believe that Direct Democracy, whatever its form, means the end of what we have traditionally called Politics, that is a separate activity, founded on a cleavage between Representatives and the Represented. A certain universalist conception of Politics is dying before our eyes. One needs to take note of this in order to halt the disappearance of what comes with Democracy - and which Opinion-Poll Democracy does not guarantee: the protection of Liberties.

Régis Debray: Within a philosophical frame of reference, Opinion is the lowest form of knowledge, something like prejudice, a mental state which tends to agreement to something represented. It is quite the contrary to Conviction, which is not a question of agreement, but of existence. And here is the nub of the problem: Opinion does not share an equal playing field with Conviction. Does public-Poll Democracy stand up to religious movements, which are world-wide? I wouldn't think so, it is scissors against rock. It is in the field of International Affairs that public Opinion is completely off: we no longer know what the exterior world is because, in effect, opinion reigns.

Jacques Julliard: I do not disagree with the distinction made by Régis Debray between Opinion and Conviction. Opinion is Liberty and, from this point of view, I see no difference between Representative Democracy and Opinion-Poll Democracy, founded on pluralism and open debate. Of course there is here a handicap for these democracies - let us call them liberal - because they must take the time to debate and convince. But it is essential.

Régis Debray: I keep coming back to my belief in this matter: a promotion to Citizen for he who does not follow blindly; a promotion to Statesman for he who does not blindly follow Opinion. Even if, in a Democracy, things are not always clear-cut.

The debate was moderated by Emmanuel Laurentin (France Culture).

Winehouse

For Yves Saint Laurent, 1936-2008.