The secret life of plastic bags

Nowadays, several french supermarkets don't give any plastic bags to their clients. You either arrive with your own bags, or buy big reusable bags for a small fee. You can then ask for a replacement when it gets used. Consumers are used to that, now, and you rarely hear people complain. Yesterday, i went to the pharmacy, and when the pharmacist reached for a plastic bags to put my things in, i told her not to worry, i could easily fit them in my purse. She then tried to put the plastic bag where she had grabbed it from, but it wouldn't go back, so she simply rolled it into a ball and threw it in the bin. I was angry : it was exactly where i didn't want THIS one bag to end up because of me. But what should i have done ? Given her a lesson ? On coming back home, i listened to artist Kader Attia speaking on the radio. He was talking of one of his installation, which included plastic bags (that's the photo above). It was set up in Cuba, and one of the visitors simply took the bags home. How could you even have expected him to understand the whole secret meaning the artist had put in it ? Most of us live in a world of plastic bags, obviously Cubans don't...

32 died in riot over disagreement on what constitutes environment protection and development

These days in France everybody was talking about Yann Arthus-Bertrand's new plea in favor of protecting the environment, "Home" (it's a film with magnificient views of the earth and the terrible things that man is doing to it). Its motto is "look at all the magnificient things that exist on earth, so that you will love it more and defend it better". Very far away from the people comfortably seated in their sofas who watched the film on their tvs or computers, others had their hands on very practical aspects of this defense. And died trying to defend their view on how to protect on of these "magnificient" pieces of the planet : the Amazon forest. Rue 89 briefly reported the issue ("La course au pétrole tue en Amazonie péruvienne" ), as well as the NYTimes ("9 Hostage Officers Killed at Peruvian Oil Facility", "Fatal Clashes Erupt in Peru at Roadblock"). Basicaly, it is a clash between two views of how the country should develop. On the one side, Peruvian president Alan Garcia, who expressed his views on how to deal with the Amazon, in 2007 :

"There are millions of hectares of forest remaining idle, other millions of hectares that the communities and associations never cultivated and will never cultivate [...]. For investment to take place, what is needed is secure land rights, but we've been deceived into giving out small plots of land to poor families who don't have a cent to invest [...]. Demagogy dictates that this land cannot be touched because it is a sacred object [...]. This same land sold into big lots would attract technology which would also bebefit villagers."

"We are still discussing whether mining techniques destroy the environment, which is a topic of the previous century [...]. The old anticapitalist communist of the 19th century dressed up as a protectionnist during the 2Oth century, and it changed its shirt again in the 21st century to appear as an environmentalist."

On the other hand, the indigenous peoples of the country, who have been given some kind of recognition of their legitimacy to discuss the future of the forest and have rights over big tracts of it. Their point is expressed here and there in a 1998 interview of Awajum leader Santiago Manuin ; he basically says that their point is to make the state understand their culture and their point of view on the land, that they want to share the land, but don't want to see the person with whom they are sharing it act as a predator. And this is precisely what caused the upheaval in the first place : the government is currently giving out leases to oil and timber companies, without any prior agreement with the indegenous peoples living on these territories. When indegenous groups organise strikes, and threat to cut out energy and foreign currency sources, the government simply sends the army out.

Our daily dose of feminism : a canadian look at its reality in France in 2009

A little film made by 3 students... well done girls.

Dead body count and the media

Today, Le Monde says that, according to the UN, 6500 people have probably been killed in Sri Lanka since January.

Last week, i read in Courrier International (in an article called "Une guerre inutile et couteuse", written by Fernando Peinado Alcaraz, originally in El Pais under the title : "El 'narco' va ganando la guerra. ¿Y ahora qué hacemos?") that in Mexico, more than 7000 people died in the battle against drug cartels since january 2008, and that 6600 people died in the israeli-palestinian conflict between 2000 and 2008.

What struck me was the similarity of figures. And the totally different impression of the reality of these conflicts i had.

All these deads are probably not given a fair coverage.

Appalling journalism

Yesterday, i read this article in the Irish Times (Student's Wikipedia hoax quote used worldwide in newspaper obituaries), about a student who added a false statement to the wikipedia biography of composer Maurice Jarre. The following day, that invented statement by Jarre about life and music could be found in such supposedly serious newspapers as The Guardian and The Independant.

Ok, nobody cares about this composer, but still one would expect from journalists that if they deem a topic important enough to be published, they would go further than wikipedia to look for information about him.

More suprisingly, i found an article in Le Monde on the same topic (Fausse citation sur Wikipedia, journaux piégés). They do precisely refer to the article from the Irish Times, but it's almost a translation, word for word - but with a "Le Monde" signature.

As a reader of that newspaper, i would expect slightly more professional journalism than simply translating work done by others (for instance the IT mentionned other newspapers in "India and Australia" who also reproduced the citation, the journalist in LM disn't event try to complete that piece of info).

Actually, if i want to read translated articles from foreign newspapers, i read Courrier International. And a few weeks back they published an article from Algerian daily "Le quotidien d'Oran", titled "L’Algérie, quelques journalistes français et moi", written by Akram Belkaïd. It is extremely instructive on the laziness and ignorance that many journalists put into doing their job. As one of the few algerian journalists working in France, Belkaïd tells about the numerous phonecalls he received from French journalists trying to cover the algerian elections last month, how they tried to make him do their own work, asking him for tips and names of people they could interview, without ever offering to acknowledge his knowledge, existence, etc.

It is very witty and instructive. And a bit depressing as to the quality of information we are fed, how it is constructed in black and white, with very little analysis and knowledge on the topic.

Post scriptum : and what about the salaries of soccer players ?

Seen today in Le Monde, an interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, candidate of the green coalition for the european elections :

"la société est complexe. Les gens ne se sentent pas concernés par la crise de la même façon. Certains même y échappent. Je suis aussi intrigué par cette histoire de bonus, de stock-options. En France comme en Allemagne, ça rend les gens fous. Mais, les salaires de la société du spectacle, des animateurs de télé ou des footballeurs ne rendent pas fous, alors que c'est la même folie. Un jeune du PSG gagne, à 22 ans, 90 000 euros par mois. Ça, bizarrement, on le supporte."

Yeah, what about a monthly 90 000 euros check for kicking a ball ? Shouldn't that be even more outrageous than the big bosses' checks ?

What the matter with huge pays (and bonuses) ?

The US house of representatives voted last Thursday a bill that would mean an almost confiscation of bonuses for employees earning more than 250 000$ gross income in companies which have received more than 5bn $ in state support.

In France, the Société Générale (that bank that less than a year ago had made what was then the biggest loss ever by a bank - 5bn € ; which was also probably saved with the bailout of AIG) announced last Wednesday (the day before a general strike called for by trade unions ; 3 million people went to the streets, 1 in 20 inhabitants of the country) that its top executives would get a bunch of stock options. After the public outrage and some government pressure, they seem to be reverting decisions.

Leaving aside the minute debates (is this fair to the ones who received 4,9bn $ support ?) and technicalities, or even the debate on whether these are or not populist moves by governments, i would retain the fact that they carry two ideas which strike me as being totally unthinkable only 6 months ago :

- some people earn too much :

the arguments of AIG are "this is how we want to keep our good employees, otherwise they will go and work elsewhere", and in reality, they are simply sticking to the same type of salary package as usual. So in the end their level is only more outraging now that more people will be poorer, than it was a year ago. The kind of salaries we're talking about are equivalent to earning in a month what someone paid a minimum wage (and at French levels) would need a whole year to earn. 30 years ago, these kinds of discrepancies in salaries didn't even exist.

Nowadays, there is a world elite of a few tens of thousands of people who not only are paid this, but also think it is fair, and are also often the ones who decide what their peers will be paid.

- governments can (and will) regulate this arena - and the banking sector will fight against it :

instead of leaving the private sector completely to itself, governments will have to play a regulating role, if only to prevent public outrage from turning to social unrest. And the wealthy elite that does not want to see this happen is reacting. Seen in last Friday's edition of the Financial Times : "In Frankfurt one employee at a US investment bank said the new tax measures would “send [the US] back to the stone age” (Banker fury over tax ‘witch-hunt’).