2012/01/05

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  Poissonnerie Shamrock - Shamrock fish store - 2011.12.07
  (marché Jean-Talon)
  Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
  

  Americana - take 1

  The word Santorum sounds like some kind of toilet bowl cleaner. Add-on: which is of interest to no one and pretty lame to even mention in a blog. Jan 6: - Add-on to the Add-on: In view of his comments yesterday at a New England College equating gay marriage with polygamy, let me reinstate this but somewhat differently. He is not some kind of toilet bowl cleaner, he is the toilet bowl itself. I should never come back on what I write. Time sometimes proves me right.

  

  Americana - take 2

  In Iowa , whose caucuses launched on Tuesday the forthcoming primaries (primalries ) which will unfold in the States of the Union during the next months, only 21% of eligible Republican voters believe in global warming and 35% in the theory of evolution, according to the survey firm Public Policy Polling. These are the people those candidates are trying to satisfy to get their votes. Just sayin'. Rick Perry says he's thinking [about his immediate future]. That's new for him. Why doesn't he remain his own self and get lost, now! He nor we don't need any thinking about this. The woman, her, didn't sleep on the switch before catching the message. Then again, women don't have testosterone overflows to manage.

  

  Americana - take 3

  Nice full page last Saturday, the 31st, in a section of my paper dedicated to the analysis of major world events of the year past. I'm talking about the setting. The vertical pic of Obama and everything. I'm also talking about the contents. In that article titled "United States - Birth of a new pessimism", they were reporting what an ambassador of a European country had to say about the current American mood, based on his 30-year experience as a diplomat there. I found it quite (very in fact) interesting and since Google's translation needed much less adjustments than usual (once is not custom), I can post it here.

  

  2011 was the first year of cohabitation between Barack Obama and Republicans, who now control the House of Representatives. But instead of constructive compromise, the year was marked by paralysis, especially on issues dominating the campaign for the elections of November 2012: that is the fragile economic recovery and the monumental debt. This paralysis helping, 2011 was the year of a new kind of pessimism for Americans.

  Washington - For the first time, the majority of Americans believe that younger generations will have a more difficult life than their own. That's what they notably told the pollsters of the Gallup Institute in 2011. This pessimism is the highlight of the past year and could characterize the one which is starting.

  Nothing so far has eased it. Neither the assassination, on May 2, of Usama bin Laden, enemy number one in the United States since the attacks of September 11, 2001 which he had claimed. Neither the death of Colonel Kadhafi, former American enemy number one. Or even the ending, just before Christmas, of the Iraq war, the longest conflict in U.S. history with the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

  The continued embroilment in the Pakistan-Afghanistan mess did not help any more than the end of the manned flights of the Space Shuttle on July 21, the start of drone flights in police surveillance activities in the United States itself, or the failure of the U.S. intelligence to be informed of the death of Kim Jong-il before learning it, December 19, through the official medias of the North Korean regime.

  The things is that this pessimism is new, because it is existential. It relates to the vision that Americans have of their country and their place within it.

  The ambassador of a European country who has known the United States for three decades and prefers to speak to Le Devoir on conditions of anonymity, thinks that this pessimism reflects an awareness by Americans of the decline of their country.

  «Americans are very patriotic, but a patriotism based largely on an almost utopian vision of their country. The conflict between this feeling and an often less than perfect reality has always led to intense debates and self-criticism, for example during the Vietnam War. But these debates, for difficult they may have sometimes been, had never cropped the fundamental optimism that this utopia was in the order of the possible. Today, and for the first time, the founding optimism is itself being put in question: Americans are wondering whether their national history isn't going backwards, both in the econonic field and in terms of influence in the world.», declares to Le Devoir this diplomat based in Washington.

  Economic malaise

  The erosion of the Americans' "founding optimism" is primarily driven by their economic malaise. Four years after the collapse of the housing market that led to what Barack Obama and other politicians call "the worst crisis since the Great Depression," Americans "do not believe that a rebound will happen, and if ever it does, they do not expect to benefit from it" as two investment funds managers, Sheldon Kasowitz and Ethan Devine, wrote in the New York Times.

  The American economic malaise has long existed . Wages in real terms have not changed since 1970 and inequalities have widened further in the United States than elsewhere in the Western world since 1975, as shown in the report published by the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] on December 5th. But the duration as well as the magnitude of the current crisis - that is to say the fact that it deeply affects the middle class and the White population, and not anymore only the poor and the Blacks - is now shaking the foundations of the famous "American dream".

  "We can't climb the social ladder [" We can't get ahead "]," lamented an Illinois resident on National Public Radio on December 22. A complaint heard across the country this year.

  Yet signs of recovery have appeared. 2011 ends with an unemployment rate of 8.6%, the lowest since March 2009. Growth was 1.8% in the third quarter, 0.5% more than during the second. Households have reduced their debt, devoting now only 11.09% of their after-tax income to service their debt instead of 14% just before the crisis broke in 2007. Construction of individual houses and apartment buildings increased by 9.3% in November, the highest figure since April 2010. Applications for building permits, they, climbed 20.7% over 2010, which suggests an improvement in the housing sector and the overall economy in 2012.

  "The economy is moving in the right direction," said Barack Obama. But "for someone who is unemployed or whose house is foreclosed, it is not enough," added the president.

  According to official figures, there are now in the United States more than 13 million unemployed. Some 43% of them experience a long-term unemployment, that is to say for over 27 weeks; only 22% of 5.7 million long-term unemployed receive benefits. Foreclosures were up over 21% in the third quarter. Over 46 million Americans live below the poverty line, a new record since 1959, when the U.S. government began keeping statistics on the subject.

  As for the federal government's debt, it resulted in the U.S. losing its AAA rating from rating agency Standard & Poor's on Aug. 6, before topping the surreal 15,000 billion line on November 19. Increasing at a rate of over 50 billion per day, the public debt will exceed the gross domestic product in 2012, warned the International Monetary Fund.

  Despair and frustration

  Faced with these problems, the politicking manoeuvers, essentially delaying tactics, from the executive and legislative branches, as well as the absence of profound changes coming from the White House, disappoint and exasperate Americans. Having started the year with an average "popularity" rating of only 19.6%, Congress wraps it up below 13%. Barack Obama, him, has a satisfaction rate of 46% but ends the year as he had begun it.

  Exasperation prevails over disappointment. "Don't destroy the American dream!" exhorted a sign waved by demonstrators from the "Occupy " movement, the American version of the movement of indignation, which began on September 17 in front of the Wall Street Stock Exchange.

  «The country is very divided, the political center seems to be losing ground, the situation is exacerbated by the economic climate and the budgetary crisis, it becomes very difficult to find common ground» says our European ambassador.

  «The middle class loses out, or at least stagnates. This is new in the United States, he said. There is also the feeling that the banks were bailed out by taxpayers while the bonuses paid in the financial sector did not decline significantly. All this led to anger among the middle class which fueled the Tea Party in 2010, and now the Occupy movement.»

  But while the Tea Party movement had resorted to the Trojan horse strategy to try to control the agenda of the Republican Party in 2011, Occupy sends back to back the two Parties dominating American politics. Inspired by the revolts in Tunisia or Egypt, it denounces the system itself. Some Americans take to the streets to express a general outrage. This is unprecedented in the post-Vietnam United States.

  Yet, since the beginning of the movement this fall, politicians and the American media either ignored or ridiculed the indignates, or focused on the alleged infiltration of the movement by anarchists or delinquents. Meanwhile, the decentralization of both the movement and its internal decision-making has hampered its communications. Thus, it is to the movement itself that more and more of Americans attribute the violence they saw in the police raids against the indignants camps.

  The Occupiers are therefore reviewing their strategy. Instead of setting camps, or on the fringes of, they march past the White House and Congress, block foreclosures, disrupt the boards of large companies, block ports to protest against the relocation of jobs. Links are established with organizations with old and national structures: trade unions, churches or Irak war veterans organizations.

  Whatever the good or bad fortunes of Mr. Obama, of his Democratic friends and of his Republican opponents in the presidential and legislative elections of November 2012, the biggest challenge that presents itself in the United States therefore concerns the American people itself. For the movement of indignation, the challenge is to maintain its independence and avoid being recuperated by the Democratic Party. For the whole of their compatriots, the crucial challenge is not to expect a change in the existing two-party system, but to channel their pessimism so as to weigh in the political balance and to, who knows, dream of an "American Spring" .

  © Marie-Christine Bonzom - Published in Le Devoir - December 31, 2011

  (original article "en français" -> http://www.ledevoir.com/international/etats-unis/339402/etats-unis-naissance-d-un-pessimisme-nouveau

  Seen from here, all this American senseless political bickering as of late by irresponsible public figures, in Congress and elsewhere, and rising to untold summits in the current election circus, including the deluge of money involved, reminds me of the orchestra on the Titanic's deck. With the notable difference that on the Titanic, they knew that the ship was sinking, and knew there was nothing they could do about it.

  The American ship is taking water, and those Americans who don't pass the essential of their time in church basements know it too. The above article is certainly not a scoop for them. But that ship can be made to say afloat. Way too many American politicians act as if they lived on another planet, oblivious to what's really happening behing the scenes. Or under the flashy rugs they parade on. I'll concede that they are not all the cream of the crop, that's the least one can say. Democracy has its kinks. And loving Jesus does not make you an expert in economics. So it all narrows down to the American people itself. If it decides to do something about it. About that, I'm dimly optimistic. It's gonna be a long stretch. And old habits are not easy to break.

  Meanwhile, those who could act now and effectively in the 'existing' political structures are the Haves. This brings us back to greed. Always the greed. A large majority of the Haves will prefer sinking with their greed than sharing their wealth with the Have-Nots. And there's a good chance they woud drag along all the others with them. What characterizes best the American society is not individualism, as widely thought, individualism not being bad per se, but the fear of turning out to become a loser. In the American psyche, if you're a loser you are no one. Doing what it takes to be a winner is a war that makes no prisoners. It's me, myself and I, and the buck, literally, stops there.

  I'm not lecturing here. I'm selfishly minding my own interests. Because if the U.S. sinks, we will darn well sink along with them, whatever BigBallsChestThumpingKyotoTerminator Harper says or thinks.

  Laterz: Just found this - When they say that a pic is worth a thousand words... Ironing out reality to hide its creases?

  
  pic © Charles Dharapak - AP

  Even more laterz: President Obama felt it necessary today to promise to maintain the "military superiority" of the United States in the world, despite the necessary budget cuts. I guess that if he had to say this, he knew that it was a matter of sizeable concern among Americans. That ambassador is not that off track, isn't he.

  

  Canadiana - take 1

  Read in my paper this morning that the excuse given by the Canadian government to scrap its membership of the Kyoto Agreement was based on falsehoods. They contended that since Canada did not (a euphemism) meet its Kyoto goals (adopted by the former government), it would be subject to fines of 14 billion dollars if it stayed part of the agreement. It would appear that this is total bullshit, there being nothing in the Kyoto agreement to this effect.

  

  Canadiana - take 2

  Or should we call this Quebecana. In the same paper, an opinion in the Idées (Ideas) page by Daniel Turp, international public law teacher at the Université de Montréal and himself a former politician (separatist) at both the provincial and federal levels, enjoins the Quebec government to make it clearly known that Quebec is not part of this "Canadian" approach and that it has and intends to continue working towards reaching the Kyoto Accord's greenhouse gas reduction goals (which is true), and also that if Harper says the Kyoto Accord is something of the past, it certainly is not for the Québec government and its citizens. He also contends, and he's quite knowledgeable on this, that the Canadian position could well be overthrown by our higher courts, aka the government being forced to reintegrate Kyoto. That would make us the laughing stock of the planet, wouldn't it! (presuming we are not already). Turp is preparing a court action on this. The idea is to make sure that elsewhere on this planet, it becomes known that Harper does NOT speak for all of Canada, and also that he spoke in matters that are in large part not even of his juridiction. Mr Turp has set up a "citizens petition" website where individual Quebecers can adhere, on a personal basis, to the Kyoto Accord. There is also another online petition, this one on the National Assembly site, asking the Assembly members to reaffirm the total adherence of Québec to the treaty, despite Ottawa's withdrawal.

  Text of this last petition (my translation):

  WHEREAS the government of Canada has decided to denounce the Kyoto Protocol at the United Nations framework convention on climate changes;

  WHEREAS that in accordance with the Law on the Internatinal Relations Ministry, the National Assembly has approved the Kyoto Protocol by unanimously adopting a motion on November 28, 2006, and that the Québec government has declared itself bound by it by adopting a decree on December 5 2007;

  WHEREAS there exists in Québec a large consensus with regards to the fight against climate changes;

  WHEREAS Quebecers, men and women, adhere to the principles of lasting development and equity towards future generations;

  We, men and women citizens of Québec, ask the National Assembly to denounce the decision of Ottawa and reaffirm the commitment of Québec towards the Kyoto Protocol. We ask, therefore, the government of Québec to respect the targets of limitation and reduction of emissions during the commitment period extending from 2008 to 2012.

  

  More of Elizabeth

  I'm not talking about adding more disgrace to this Royalty ass-licking frenzy that Harper and his freaks have been indulging in lately.

  I am rather talking about a réveillon leftover, a nice piece of Bleu d'Elizabeth blue cheese not to name it. I have this recipe I picked up decades ago on TV5, by a Belgian become Swiss chef who is dead now, most probably, and of whom I have talked about before, I'm pretty sure also. This recipe is so simple it's mind boggling, and yet, it is real food for the gods, no kidding. Needed: clarified butter, chicken breast, roquefort or similar strong blue cheese, cream and a make-up kit (paprika, flour, salt, pepper). And pasta, farfalle or the likes.

  The modus operandi is quite simple: you pan fry the seasoned chicken breast on both sides in hot clarified butter for a good twelve minutes. For some reason, it never burns. A dark golden crust forms and the chicken continues cooking and stays moist, by some kind of miracle. In the meantime you mix and heat half and half cheese and cream until smooth. When the chicken is cooked, you put it in a preheated plate, add the cheese/cream mix to the pan along with a dallop of regular butter, heat until it thickens (a matter of seconds) and then spread on the chicken. Accompany with the pasta. The parsley on the pic is my add. Strong salty blue cheese for this recipe is a must. Oh yeah, I forgot, I had this for supper last evening (Wednesday). This dish calls for red wine. I had this opened bottle of Cahors that my brother had brought for the réveillon but which we did not use then, so Cahors it was. It's only after I finished my meal that I remembered that the region where roquefort is made and the Cahors region are practically neighbors. Nice coincidence.

  Yeah, it's kinda rich. So? What's your point?

  

  

  Kings

  No, again, I'm not talking about William, king to be and grandchild of the other one. I'm talking about that trio which was wandering around Palestine some years ago, maybe a couple of thousand for all I care.

  I stopped by my Latino grocery store this afternoon to buy some cookies and came face to face with some of the largest cakes I had ever seen. I didn't know what they were called and asked if they were "coronas" (crowns). I was told they were roscas de reyes. I didn't know what roscas were but hearing reyes (kings), my religious upbringing flashed back to my mind. It is a traditional Latino cake they make for the Epiphany, the Three Wise Men day. Originally it was round, but now they are oval because Latino families are large families and they need a large cake. One was even double the size of the others, filling the whole cabaret. I don't have a clue what they taste like. Maybe I should buy one and see. On the other hand, I just [only] finished the stollen yesterday so a rosca whatever could last me months. I'll see...

  

  Laterz:

  
  Caption: «Some 200,000 citizens of the capital had a taste yesterday - along with a glass of mik - of a portion of the traditional 740-meter [2,427-foot] long rosca de reyes, courtesy of the Federal District's government headed by Marcelo Ebrad, who announced it as being the largest in the world.»
  Pic © Foto Notimex, La Jornada Jalisco

  Sigh... Gawd I miss that incredible city! The Zócalo (familiar name for the Plaza de la Constitución) is the large plaza in the center of historic Mexico City, one of the world's largest. The church in the far left is the cathedral, built by the Spanish where was and with the stones taken from the Templo Mayor, one of the Aztecs' main temples. The building on the right is the Presidential Palace (Palacio Nacional). I think everyone understood "masiva".

  

  • 01:29
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