Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful.
It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom.
He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically,
but almost with pleasure.

Aldous Huxley


Thursday, May 28, 2009

Praising the Large Hearted Boy



I just found this MP3 blog. Although it doesn't have much to do with Enigmatic Worthlessness I still wanted to mention it because the guy has a great musical taste. Browse the page and look for the yearly best of lists and you'll find great music - that you can download for free and legally!

Congratulation, largehearted boy...

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

When The Pirate Bay Goes Politicalistic...


When The Pirate Bay - the biggest and best torrent website - goes political I applaud! This is the image that appears when going on The Pirate Bay, and it is great. It's a kind of remake of the First World War British and American propaganda posters urging the masses to enroll in the Army and go to the Front...

May us European all vote between the 4th and 7th of June 2009! Viva la democracia! So for all of those who claim that the EU is an autocratic administrative supra-state big thingy, stop complaining and vote then!
Jalla jalla!

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Enigmatic Worthlessness of Justice?



I just found out about a new case of justice's worthlessness... This is a documentary from Al Jazeera on the case of Trafigura, the world's third largest oil trading company. According to Wikipedia - I'm not [yet] an academic - Trafigura last year had a turnover of US$73bn, or more than the double of Côte d'Ivoire's GDP last year (US$34bn), which gives an indication on what we are talking about.

The documentary is about the trial case between the people in Abidjan and Trafigura in which the oil trading company dumped toxic wastes next to villages all around Abidjan, resulting in sicknesses and deaths.

Apparently Martyn Day, the British lawyer defending the Côte d'Ivoire people, is fairly confident on the outcome of the trail that's gonna take place in October 2009. Yet I liked very much what he pointed out:
"But what I think has not worked quite well is the strong desire within Abidjan to see trafiquers itself in the dock in which it would have to defend the charges about what it did."
Yet I hope people in Abidjan win and finally get some proper compensations to deal with their legacy of sicknesses from Trafigura... And thant you Al Jazeera and Juliana Ruhfus for this documentary.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

This is Enigmatic Worthlessness!



Yes, this is enigmatic worthlessness at a high degree. But ain't worthlessness so good? Today, my father, my brother and myself went to meet "the guys": a troop of semi-retired people who go have a cup of coffee almost each morning and discuss literature sessions, theater projects and the Cannes Festival. Very nice. I hope I when I retire - if it happens and that I'm still alive, and also if the global warming hasn't become too warm, or the pig flu too pandemic or mutated to horse flu - I can also be a cool hanging around guy talking about my last piece of genius writing or my last travel to Uzbekistan or whatever... Yes.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

After the Pope: Obama



After the Pope voiced the Vatican's support for a Palestinian State, the Obama administration finally assumed the stance that the US ought to have taken many years ago. In this interview from Al Jazeera the US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, is confirming what have been said between Obama and Netanyahu. That is that the US is
"committed to a two-state solution ... And therefore nothing should be done to undermine the potential resolution of the peace effort that could prevent such a two-state solution from taking hold"

And this is really a good thing. But now the questions on future borders remain highly uncertain. The Al Jazeera journalist asked Hilary if the borders from 1967 would be used but the questions remained unanswered. And as she said, the Obama administration is only pushing for a halt on further Jewish settlements project on Palestinian land, but what about all the existing ones that makes the West Bank look like a piece of Swiss cheese: full of holes!

Even if a Palestinian state is created, I still don't understand how it is gonna work since the territory agreed upon will consist of scattered pieces of Palestinian land between which Israeli check points will exist... A big masquerade.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Jala Jala, Pope Calls for Palestinian Homeland

Today I heard the voice of the benevolent Pope for the first time in his address to Palestinian's right for a sovereign land. It was an absolutely wonderful experience.

Still I was happy to hear that this Pope of ours is calling for reconciliation in the Middle East, although it's not like his voice will change anything. But the more it is talked about the better.

But then as Sabrina and I were reading different news websites we realized something quite striking.

Among the biggest US news broadcaster only CNN had a story on the Pope's call for Palestinian Homeland! But one would have to look hard to find it, and the story is just about a call for reconciliation but nothing is said about any Palestinian State... FoxNews has absolutely nothing of course, and neither do the Washington Post.

Even worse, in FoxNews the only covered subject is about the Pope's link with Hitler Youth Camps and Israeli's irritation. While I also doubt the Pope absolute benevolence (just look at his face on this AP picture on the left...), his speech should have been reported because it still is a call for hope. The Pope' s Hope.

But while we all know about the substantial quality of FoxNews' news, I was even more surprised to see that the New York Times' only story was about "Christians in Mideast Loosing Numbers and Influence"! Weewow! So the NYTimes just ignores a call for a Palestinian State from one of the most conservative person in the world and instead fuels the American's fear of global Muslim domination... This is incredible.

There is nothing either on the various Canadian press I checked on, that is theStar.com, Globe and Mail, and La Presse (in Quebec).

On the other hand all European media I checked had their main story on the Pope's call for a Palestinian State. The Guardian, BBC, Le Monde, El Pais, and of course on Al Jazeera (maybe the best media I know).

This says a lot about the state of mind that prevails in North America, and it maybe also explains why the "road for peace" in the Middle East is full of scattered obstacles when the main actor, the USA, is apparently more concerned on the loosing numbers of Christians in Middle East...

(photos: the Guardian and AP)

Saturday, May 9, 2009

The First Step

That’s it, things are getting started; I finally got out of Montreal, took my first couple of planes and in the end arrived in Oslo, Norway. While this is maybe not as exciting as travelling along the Silk Road, it is still something in itself. This is my second experience with Norway and I am just as amazed as the first time about people speaking Norwegian everywhere. It may not sound that peculiar to hear people speaking Norwegian in Norway but it is still quite something; maybe it’s because the only Norwegian people I know live in Canada and speak English all the time (unlike French who often refuse to speak anything else than French all around the world…). Or maybe it is because of my exceptional ability to be eternally amazed at… things.

But still, Norway brings me one step closer to Xinjiang, and the steps are starting to follow each other faster and faster. I still haven’t finished my website, and time is running fast! I also have to do quite a lot of research on the history of the places where I’ll be going to, and there are a lot of them! And I need to improve my photography skill; but it’s all under way. I am actually editing on Dreamweaver right now, in the café lounge of Oslo’s hospital while Sabrina is visiting her grandfather. And if I need a break I can contemplate the big Norwegian flag on the entrance of the building… Ja, vi elsker dette landet!

(picture: just behind Sabrina's father's house... the forest is never too far in Oslo!)

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Garage Sale
























Che Martin and Wonder Julie at the garage sale on Saturday.