Buscaraons
Le conseil d'état française et la décentralisation: quelle surprise
Le Figaro rapport une grande
surprise: le Conseil d'état a donne des avis négatifs à la décentraisation. Ce que me contente beaucoup c'est que Raffarin ne modificara en rein son project de loi et le présentera auprès de consile de ministres. Bien joué Jean-Pierre! Voilà l'espirit que j'aime beaucoup. La France doit se débrasser d'un centralisme absurd qui sappe l'initiative de la population et ingère dans le fonctionnment des entités intermédiare qu'elles soit gouvernmentales ou non. Le principe de la subsidarité se respectara et la France commencera à décoller comme jamais auparavant.
Francía es ahora un blanco
El Mundo ha publicado un reportaje sobre un
atentado frustado cerca de la embajada francesa en Israël. Según fuentes policiales el palestino llevaba una gran carga de explosivos pero que no ha tenido la oportunidad a estallarla. Qué interesante que ahora Francía ha devenido un blanco por los terroristas del islamismo integrante. Esta notícias pondrá en verde a blogger jingoísticos como
Den Beste. Lentament pero segura el gobierno francés concorrerá con la tésis américana que hay un eje del mal y se deberá ataquar preemetivamente antes que el Enimigo ataque en primero.
Fal.làcies sobre el conflicte de les cultures
l'artice d'Abduallah Barjubeer es sobre els confictes entre les civilitzacions es
fal.laciós
Al meu parer la revolució informàtica-communicativa haurà agreujat no solucionat el conflicte. Ademés, ¿d'on surt això que les cultres s'unificaren i les barreres lingüistiques s'haguéssin esborrades? Segons que veig la Torre de Bàbel existeix encara i les cultres mondials no s'hauran homogenïtzades. El fet que els avions o els cel.luars de quansevol pais funcionen de manera idèntica, es degut al descobriment de lleis físiques que s'han aplicades a productes. Només hi ha una civilització que ha reexida a fer això. Es veritat que les civilitzacions occidental i oriental no son isolades de cadascuna però la segona imita, o almenys tenta a imitar la primera. El metafòr del poble global no es gaire veritat car ell cita si hagués una crisi a Wall St tot el món sofriria;ço que es veritat però una inundació a Bangladesh no afecta en res al Canadà o als altres països industralitzades excepte per concertar l'ajuda humanitària.
Genetics has nothing to do with courage
O shit. Arabnews comes out with this
crap
Genetics has
absolutely nothing to do with strong and weak states nor with courage Rather it's political decisions shaped by cultural values that create strong and weak states. Consequently, Arab weakness has nothing to do with genes or not reciting the Qu'ran out loud. Arab societal weakness is primarily based on a shame society dominated by tribalism which privileges honour over truth; pride over knowledge. Consequently, Arab societies have completely closed itself off from external influences but blames outsiders for its troubles. Consequently, Arab culture has stagnated. It produces no ideas, products, inventions, literature or arts that the rest of the world wants to imitate in hommage. Just about everything about Arab culture is sterile, dull and unattractive.
So the Germans not the French will America's new whipping boy
Colin
May has written a stirring defense of the French and their committment in fighting Islamic integrist terrorism. My only regret is that the Germans aren't following the French attitude. I suspect that Germany, like those heros in the latin American soap operas has to undergo progressive degrdation before he triumphs over adversity.
More compelling reasons are that unlike Germany, France has suffered under Islamist terrorism. Most Americans have either forgotten or are unaware that during the late 80s, the mullahs were killing off Iranian dissidences in France. Further there was a grenade attack against civilians at the Fany department store for 8 days during the legislated sales events carried out by Iranians. Also there was the infamous incident of teh 5 French Trappist monks who were kidnapped and then murdered by teh FIS or some Islamist group. Recently, there's the criminal case against 3 of the 7 terrorist carried out grenade attacks in the Paris metro in '95.
The French come across as hypocritical but they're not dumb; they know what's at stake because they have the problem right at home. I sure hope that the Germans wise up soon as well.
Before America demands from Canada...
I read Charles Austin's
comment at Bill Quick's
site. Let me be uncharacteristically harsh: before the Americans demand anything from Canada, the former might want to drop the 27% duties on softwood lumber. It's kinda hard to support America on the war effort and beef up our military when there are tens of thousands of workers losing their jobs and applying for welfare/unemployment benefits. Americans officials just love to boss Canada and expect Canadians to become loyal lapdogs yapping in excitement for the next tricks to carry out. Yet, the American government has no compunction of screwing Canada whenever some no name senator or congressman shreiks over spurious Canadian government subsidies on softwood, grain or whatever beef du jour. Here's a clue senator or congressman: let free trade flourish instead of coddling your constituencies from good old fashioned competition.
Consejos de que cambiar del imágen del islam
Arabnews pregunta rétoricamente de cómo se puede cambiar el imágen del
islam
Bueno primeramente de parar la discriminación en su ayuda
humanitaría Luego podré condenar más vehemente los ataques que los musulmanes perpetúan contra los no-musulmanes y sobretodo cesar la financión de los imames radicales y odiosos que prediquen la muerta a los infideles.
Finalmente, comprende la tradición religiosa occidental. ¿Por qué no se monta una exposición en el Arabe saudita que introduce este tema a los musulmanes? Invita a los capéllanos
L'islam n'est pas une race
On félicite le législateur français dans sa connerie à confondre une réligion à une
race D'y assimiler l'une à l'autre expose la sottise de la législation anti-haine. Malheureusement,
Kristellnacht et le Shoah sont dans le passé et on ne peut pas émpêche l'essor du partie nazi....en 2002.
Vous devrez me poursuivre aussi, car je trouve la civilization occientale meilleure que la musulmane. À dernière vue, je ne constatis pas des chrétiens ou des athées occidentaux qui ont réntrés dans une mosquée et tuèrent les fidèles pendant leurs prières. Les femmes possède des libérités y de la dignités inhéréentes à lesquelles elles n'y peuvent jamais déroger.. Et la liste déroule éternellement.
Napoléon et l'image de la France
Carrément ça prende un suisse romande à mettre le doigt au problème de la France contempéraine: la
centralisation Je suis d'accord que la France devra se 'dénapoleoniser' mais dans le but de décentraliser la France. Le grand vice du pays c'est que Paris veut tout savoir et tout contrôler à travers le prefectures. Ce c'est veille obséssions dès Richelieu que seule une contrôle politique depuis le centre évitera les guerres civiles ou l'instabilité politique. Cette manie a aussi sappé l'initiative spontanée et privée de citoyens ou par des entités non-gouvernmentaux. Cette mal-a-l'aise a désreponsablisé les citoyen de entreprende quelle que soit initiative au profit de l'État. Selon moi cette désir de déferer à l'État explique pourquoi le capitalisme, le libéralisme économique et le consenus de vivre paisiblement à toujour eu des difficultés à s'implanter dans le pays. Et cete difficulté-là ne date pas depuis la Révolution sinon rémonte déjà à l'Ancien Régime.
Je suis curieux de comment cette nouvelle projet de loi influencera l'evolution sociopolitique des français lorsqu'ils se rendent compte que Paris n'entreprendra pas à leur compte un projet.
Update to America and languages
Bill sent me the following observation as I was writing the previous blog post:
The optimal time to learn a second language is when one is very young. When I was in grade school, my sister started French in the third grade (late to start, but not too late). When I arrived in the third grade a few years later, foreign language instruction was moved to seventh grade. When I started seventh grade, it was moved to eighth grade. Finally, in eighth grade, I got my first year of a foreign language.
My sister has a real facility with languages. She can speak French and Spanish, and has picked up quite a bit of Vietnamese from her students (she's a teacher). I, on the other hand, have always had great difficulty learning languages. I have never picked up a language with ease, despite being immersed in one for a year, and despite living in a bilingual household.
American schools should begin foreign language instruction in the first grade, third grade at the latest. That they have gone in the opposite direction with little complaint does show a deep-seated American cultural bias against learning foreign languages.
Best,
Bill
I was struck by how much we're in agreement and how much Bill anticipated much of my main thesis. Very prescient!
I also want to clarify a point that's tacit in the post. Although I criticize American
society I don't berate
individuals There are many who learn on their own or learnt English while retaining their mother tongue; what I'm very concerned about is how American society actively discourages foreign language instruction because it's as a luxury rather than as an asset.
Reflections on the British and French enlightenment
Reading Gertrude Himmelfarb on the French and British enlightenments leaves me soured. Not at her, but at just how mixed the French- a metaphor for the Contiental enlightenments- have been for the rest of Europe. Worse, is the unexplainable jealousy that sometimes rises within me that the the British and Americans have by and large been damned fortunate with their Enlightenment while Europe just careened into the abyss with theirs.
I pointed out in a comment to Iain's original link (the comments are off line at the moment) that if the 'enlightened' monarchs of the Catholic kingdoms hadn't suppressed the Jesuits, the Continental englightenments wouldn't have gone off the deep edge and embrace utopianism with its abominal desire to remake a 'new mankind.' The French revolution would've been less violent, bloody, far less anticlerical and there wouldn't've been a French republic and the left certainly wouldn't have the monopoly of legitimacy it's usurped since 1793.
Unfortunately, that's not what happened and we're like Noah, we can't emerge from ark after the flood and pretend that nothing happened.
It's article like Himmerfarb's that cause me to despair, sometimes, in disgust at what a waste the Continental englightenments were. They've could been as contributory as the English and American but weren't.
John and Antonio's 8 Oct post on languages
John and Antonio criticize my post about Americans and
languages. I want to comment on Points 1,3 and 4.
Points 1 and 2 or American provincialism
Let me quote Revel as a point of departure:
...[L] crise de la pensée outre-Atlantique résulte d'un curieuxeffet pervers: je veux dire que l'universailté même de la langue angalise se mt à engendrer la provincilsation de la haute culture américaine. L'avantage de rencontrer partout dans le monde des interlocteurs qui parlent leur langue donne aux intéllectuels américains l'illusion d'être informés de tout ce qui se passe sur la palnète. Mais, en fait, cet avantage se retourne contre eux et les isole des courants mondiaux. Ils n'entrent en contact qu'avec une mince péllicule d'anglophone qui «résument» pour eux quelques généralités conventionnelles. Ils n'atteignent pas à la familiarité, à l'intimité, à la connaissance intuitive et concrète que seule confère la capacité de lire un autreculture «dans le texte» , de l'entrende parler de s'imprégner de sa sonorité.
[p 535; Jean-Francois Revel: "Le péril supreme" in Obre des siècles (Paris: Librarie Arthème Fayard coll. Pocket (1999)]
It's not just the intellectuals, it's other Americans too that are affected by the global dominance in English. In fact American society doesn't really encourage learning a second language. Advocates like Robert Unz and journalists like Jeff Jacoby decry bilingualism in American life and proposition that immigrants must learn English. I don't contest that requirement;what I do disagree is that learning English is a zero sum game: that the immigrant must give up his mother tongue.
Unfortunately since Sept 11, it turns out that America really does need citizens who are fluent in a second language.
Suman posted an
article of his experience when he applied to work at FBI precisely to his language skills Suman wasn't hired because in his youth, he forthrightly admitted that he smoked grass (i.e. marijuana)
Prof Glenn's comments on Suman's experiences with the FBI and blasts that law enforcement entity and the CIA for their prissiness with respect to potential security risks over smoking marijauana or being associated with 'dubious' elements. I haven't read of any outcries by the American public over the FBI and CIA's dearth of polyglot analysts.
The erosion of foreign language teaching is particularly egregious in the institute of higher education. Martin Kramr is particularly scathing with respect to Mideastern studies I find it scandlous that students who will devote their careers to studying various either don't know the language(s) or aren't as fluid as they should be. Again I hear no outcries from American public outraged at how vast sums of public money go to universities that don't even bother to teach students the necessary language skills for their degrees.
The discouragement by American society to learn foreign language and teh eagerness by the rest of the world to learn English has the unintended effect of giving disincentives for Americans. Worse is that the disinterest leads many of its citizens to refer to stereotypes and prejudice when dealing with the broader world. Nowhere has this been clearer than with the American bloggers and their commentators. In fact I've intervened in some comment sections and pleaded with the commentators and bloggers not to succumb to jingoism. At time, I became so fed up with the gratuitious references Europeans as anti-Semite, anti-Western, American hating appeasers that I wrote an sharp article blasting the lemming like goose stepping mentality found amongst some ofthe American. (By the way Solly, I still find 30% of Europeans as anti-Semites rather high)
We must acknowledge that the deep divisions and tensions between Europe and America since 11 September constitues a strategic victory by Al Qua'ida. The Islamists see no difference between the two but are estatic at the split as it'll facilitate their strategy of divide and conquer. Europe and America has more in common than differences; despite the wishful thinking of some for the Anglopshere to break away and become its own civilizational fragment, the fact remains that the Anglopshere is very much a part of Western civilization as the Germans and French. No amount of bitching will change that central fact.
Point 4
John and Antonio point out that I fell into a fallacy. Perhaps but so did they. Their fallacy is to argue that because certain untranslatable foreign words have made it into English, that suffices. It doesn't as I've already made clear above. The second fallacy is to presume that all important books and ideas are translated into English. That's not the case as Revel points out:
Il y a vingt ans, on récontrait dans les grandes maison d'éditions américanes des hommes et des femmes polyglottes à la culture authentiquement cosmopolite. Aujourd'hui, il n'est pas rare que personne ne soit pas capable chez un éditeur de lire une seule langue étrangère. La maison demande alors des rapports de lecture sur les livres non anglais à des professeurs qui connaissent lalangue originale mais ne sont pas plus éditeurs qu'un directeur de cinématique n'est un producteur de films[ibid p 535]
Revel draws the logical conclusions:
La majorité des intellectuels américains n'ont qu'une connaissance schématique et superficielle de ce qui ce pase et se pense hors de chez eux. Le grands débats d'idées moderne, le débat compétent, imaginatif, innovateur et international, c'est en Europe et en Amérique latine,de nos jours qu'il se déroule. Y compris à la télévision! Car l'Europe bat de loin l'Amérique dans le domaine des émissions culturelles et du débat télévisé de haut niveau [ibid p 536]
One of the biggest mistakes the mainstream America TV networks did in the aftermath of the Gulf War was to cut drastically their foreign news coverage. For 10 years, Americans were fed a diet of O.J. all the time, the Mendendez brothers and the trivial details of politicians and celebrities' lives. America may have taken a well-deserved holiday from the Cold war, as Krauthamer elegantly stated, but that didn't mean that the world accomodated America while it holidayed
Dawkins and religion: Dude how unoriginal!
I actually read the original article. I then scooted around what's affectionally (or sardonically) called St Blog's (or Santa Blogosfera as I like to call it)- the Catholic/religious oriented blogs- and came across this one from
Dale and Heather
I laughed quite hard at their characterization of Dawkins. I personally find him dull. He spouts the same gibberish about religion that exposes the profound lack of originality. Dawkins is frivolous and discredits the serious atheists. He reminds me of the teen who suddenly discovers that he's is own person and has perspectives on life different from his parents and wants to tell the world. It's great that for a teen;it's tedious when the realization is advanced as a paradigm shifting, epoch making, scales fell from my eyes event by a wellknown, well established and well paid scientist.
If the atheists despise preachy believers; the sentiment is reciprocal. The preachy atheist's brand of freedom and liberation always seems to lead to death camps, abominal scientific experiments, slavery, the cult of the frontal lobe and contempt for the vulnerable: kids, the crippled, the old, sick, the ugly, the dark skinned, aimable losers, whoever disgust them.
Why don't the pro-suicide bombers groups send their kids?
Abu Saber your anguished question
question touches the heart of this morally depraved policy. It's also an insolent question. Without demaning your son's death, the pro-suicide bomber groups viewed him and the children of the others as nothing but cannon fodder while the sons of the elect are groomed to suceed their fathers. It's easy to preach fiery hate speeches when
someone else's kid is the suicide bomber.
Abu Saber, your letter give me great hope that decency amongst the Palestinean isn't totally lost and that the ability to disnguish right from wrong hasn't been irrevocably corrupted. Your ephiphany that the the pro-suicide bomber groups have suckered all of you to ensure their prepetuation in power, just might be the catalyst for demanding an end to sucide bombing.Hopefully peace can find come to the region.
¿Y por qué los países muslumanes no conviven con los demós?
Ismail Royer se pregunta por qué los EE UU no se asenten y buscan una manera a convivir con los musulmanes Discuplame Ismail pero no has preguntado correctamente la problemática. Es más bien el contrario: ¿por qué los musulmanes demuestran tanta dificultad a convivir en un mundo no-musulman?
En hecho, siempre es la misma cantrilla con los musulmanes. Se quejan que el mundo no les entiende, es ignorante etc etc. Tal vez; pero tampoco se puede cerrar los ojos a estas situaciones tal como: las sentencias de muerte a las adulteras en Nigería o las matanzas con impunidad de los cristanos en sus iglesias u ofícinas; las conversiones forzades de los no-musulmanes en Indonesía o al Súdan.
En todas la índices sobre el desarrollo, educación, innovación, analfabétismo, sanidad, el mundo islamico se enceuntra a los bajos de las lístas. La razón es que partes del mundo islámico, sobtretodo al sector árabe, se han cerrado de toda influencía extranjera. Esta decisión ha conducido la región en un estéril callejón sin salida. Es absolutamente asombroso a leer que en una región que cuenta unos 200 milliones de habitantes producen el mismo PDB que Finlandía con una populación de 5 miliones si se excluye el petrólo.
Sin embargo es más fàcil echar la culpa a los demás que interrogarse las razones por su decaída espectácular en todo ambiento con que se medie una civilización
Un bon début mais...
Sept fraudeurs on été condamnés avec des sentences de prison
ferme C'est un bon début d'appliquer la nouvelle loi de sécurité quotidienne. Cependat, il ne suffit point de mettre les fraudeurs de transport publics dans le prisions si le autoritées policière et judicaires ne visent pas les vrai récidivistes: les violent. Je ne décrit pas seulement ceux-ci qui utilisent une arme à poing ou une de point. Je vise les vandales, les saccageurs, etc. La police doit rentrer de nouveau dans les banlieus 'interdits' et rétablir la loi et l'ordre. Je préconsierai que les français étudient les expérience new-yorkaises sous la mairie de Giuliani.
C'est à voir comment cette loi s'appliquera dans d'autre actes asocials ainsi que l'évolution de la lutte contre la criminalité mineure.
Thanks but no: The UN has no business with the Catholic church's sex scandals
I have scant patience with Coreced choice's lobbying efforts to drag the UN into the Catholic church's sex
scandals The UN is the same abysmal organization that sponsered the vile and abominal Durham conference on 'racism' and other blame whitey and the Jew causes.
The UN's sanctions are about as effective as collecting water with a sieve. Thanks but no. Let the UN worry about it's own problems and reform itself rather then barging in where it's neither welcome nor needed or nor wanted.
Latin American literature: what does ideology have to do with it?
Roger Fontaine is incorrect when he asserts that outside of Latin America its literature isn't readily grasped It's America that doesn't quite understand it; the rest of the world does and appreciate it much more readily.
With respect to magical realism and its Brazilian counterpart o realismo marvahaloso, it's not dervative of European culture and if it was; so what? American culture and literature wasn't impressive until the late 19th century and slavishly imitated British, French and German cultural genres. Do those influences diminish in any way Amrican cultural contributions? No of course not; quite the contrary.
It's precisely because Latin America from the late 19th century until the 1940s, it slavishly copied from Europe and America. However, it was precisely in the 50s with the first boom literaría that Latin American authours and cultures demonstrated an astonishing originality primarily through magical realism. In fact since the 50s, the Latin American authours no longer take their cues from Europe precisely thanks to the originality of Márquez García, Carptienter, Borges, Vargas Llosa, Mistral, Delibes, Reyes, etc.
Fontaine's criticism of magical realism is totally misplaced. He can criticize it on esthetic grounds but to turn around and transform the critique on ideological grounds is ludicrous. That the Left has failed in Latin America is quite obvious; so has the Right. Latin America's problem is that it's wanted to imitate every European and Amrican intellectual, political, ideological fad rather than being true to its political and cultural heritage. Spain and Portugual weren't all that terrible as colonial and imperial powers.
Update: another Spanish blogger, Ibidem
I forgot to mention another Spanish blogger
Ibidem/Atlético rules. Well actually an American who lives in Spain and goes by the pseudonym 'Jesus Gil' (owner of the club and now in jail for his corruption when he was mayor or Marbella) Last week, he sent me an email mentioning how he found me, liked my blog and added me to his links. I thanks him and quietly added him to my links.
Mea cupla for not publically welcoming him to the blogosphere. Welcome Jesus!
For once, I gotta agree with
John and Antonio that supporting Atlético is a lost cause...especially when there's Barça.
Update II: The flag controversy in Spain.
Just before I comment about the flag controversy, I want to simply explain to the non-Spanish readers what the fight is about. One of the acts of 'patriotism' in Spain is hommage to the [Spanish] flag (homenaje de la bandera) The problem with this civic act is that that the Catalans, Basques and Gallegos view it as means to deny the multi-state/multilingual reality of Spain and the ceremony is one of those cringing and nauseating affairs on who gets to wax the most lyrical over one's love affair with the Spanish flag.
Recently, Aznar- Spain's prime minister- decides that each month there'll be an hommage to the flag. This at moment when the central government has decided to intepret the Constitution of '78 very restrictively culimating in delaying as long as possible the transfer of competencies (juridictions) from the central to the Basque government under article 150 or 153 of the Constitution. Also, the government with the support of the Socialist party has been rather clumsy in illegalizing Batasuna- ETA's poltical façade.
What does this have to do with Catalunya? Well the same sort of strategy is being applied to Catalunya. I could mention the controversy of the national government's refusal to return the archives of the Generalitat of the Second Republic for purely spurious reasons. To me, there's a concerted effort, bordering on obsession, to reduce the regional nationalities to purely folkloric quaintness. Neither the PP or the Socialist have ever learnt that every time Spain apes French centralism, the results are catastrophic. Spain does better when the nationalities are left alone and allowed to flourish. I'm constantly surprised that the Spanish right, so enamoured by the Siglo de Oro have failed to grasp the Casa de Asutria's asuteness on this matter.
With respect to the Catalan flag, as John and Antonio explain, the official Catalan flag is the senyera (from LATIN: signilium) Strictu sensu in Catalan the word bandera refers specifically to the Spanish flag (and by extension other countries' flags)but never to the Catalan one. As for the other flags, I'm more familiar with one with the red triangle. From what I've been told that one supposedly comes from the Cuban flag. Very few Americans know that the Catalans settled in Cuba and were quite entrepreneurial (Barcardí the rum maker is a very Catalan name); lots made their fortunes and came home. My maternal great, great granddad was an americano, as they were called, and made his fortune which my great grandad gambled away. Like any war, some Catalans fought with the rebels; other's with the colonial government.
I have to say I'm unfamiliar with the other flag. It's not one I've seen each time I've been to Spain.
L'explosion du Limburg: attentat ou accident?
Hier, il y a une une explosion d'un superpétrolier qui batait pavillon
français D'emblée, tout le monde priviligait la thèse d'un acte terroriste et les circonstances ainsi que la preuve tendnt à confirmer cett hypothèse-là. Si les authorités confirment une ataque terroristes, les members d'Al-Qua'ida sont plus cons que stupides. Un tel attentat donnera ;à la diplomatie française une justification à donner son appui à la résolution du Conseil sécuritaire que les Américant recherchent.
Bon gré. mal gré, les Français y réflechiront à l'égard de leurs politique envers les États-Unis, le rôle de la France dans la guerre contre le terrorisme de l'islamistes intégristes et surtout de l'anti-américanisme qui bafoue l'analyse de leurs intérêts stratégique.
A plug from the mare pàtria: Thanks John and Antonio!
Many thanks to John and Antonio for their plug to my site. Long before I had my blog, I would read John and Antonio. I enjoyed perusing their posts even as I totally disagreed with the majority of their positions. That's because within the context of Spanish/Catalan politics, I oppose both national parties and view their Catalan subsidaries as nothing but Trojan horses who've never really accepted the Estats de les autonòmies in the Constutution of '78. So whatever disagreements John, Antonio and myself have with each other's position, they're are bound to lively but good-natured as well.
Let me clarify an important point, I don't live in Spain but I have enough family there, I faithfully download and print out the Thursday (for the supplement cultural) the Saturday and Sunday editions of the Avui and am sufficently fluent in both Catalan and Spanish that I might as well be there.
I'm somewhat skeptical, but I think that for now, I'm the only (semi) Catalan blogger of the blogsphere. One of my goals- which will cause John and Antonio to roll their eyes- is to normalize Catalan in the blogopshere. Mind you, unlike my cousins, I never formally learnt Catalan in school. My parents spoke Catalan at home and we were rather fortunate that our neighbourhood had 2 other Catalan families. Also when I visited my grandparents and the rest of the parentat that also stimulated knowing Catalan. However, with respect to reading and writing, I'm mostly self-taught. I didn't read Catalan until I was 16 and begin writing it until 19. I'm comfortable writing Catalan but not competent. I'm disappointed but undeterred.
It's great that the Generalitat and the rest of the Catalan state provide all these cool resources, links, help and encouragement; though in the end it's really up to the Catalans and their descendants from the diaspora to use Catalan as naturally as any any other language
Firfely: enough of the Wild west reinterpretations!
Suman raves about the new Fox sci-fi
Firefly At the risk of provoking Suman's wrath, I fould Firefly both interesting and turgid. I can say without hesitation, that I'm fed up with yet another reinterpretation of the American Wild west.
New Jerusalem vs. New England
Contrary to many sci-fi fans, I find early American colonization from 1607-1789 frankly unimpressive and I'm even more unsympathetic to America's second colonial period: that of the settlement of the west in the post-civil war period. If one reflects, we have Dissident religious denominations leaving England to the northern part of the New World to found theocracies... Let's not forget that the Dissidents, the generic umbrella name I give to the Protestant sects that opposed Anglicism, wanted to establish a New Jerusalem and to be a city on the hill.
Nor should we forget that New Jerusalem was opposed by New England i.e. the Establishment's colonization of the same space. Consequently, the formative years of the American colonies were wracked by the socio-religious conflicts between those that left England to be free of any authourity that was external to the denomination and those who desired to transplant England in the New world.
The post civil war expansion of the frontier states recreated the early colonial experience between as the settlers moved westward to settle that vast area.
These formative periods of American history shape how Whedon treats the notion of justice in his show.
Justice
Suman's practically breathless towards Firefly-as-the-frontier with its rough justice and extreme individualism. In fact, he's practically euphoric at an episode, when Maclaren pushes a reclacitrant stowaway into the engine intake because he threatened the crew. The viewers are to be impressed by this dispensation of retribution? On the contrary, for myself it offends my Augustinian principles of peace as ordered tranquility
Indeed, my reaction was how was Maclaren's action any different from the Latin American death squads, guerillas or unidades de autodefensa? One possible interpretation is that the death sqauds, guerillas and self-defense units are pathologies of a polity whose legitimacy derives from an extant state and its monopoly in dispensing justice. Consequently to challenge that administration of justice is either to capture the state or to create a parallel state apparatus that will dispense justice in a manner that delegitimizes the other. By contrast, an individual taking the law in his own hands is merely a temporary situation to right a wrong in the absence of rightful authourity.
Perhaps, but individiuals are, at times, the least reliable judges to right wrongs. Maclaren was the least competent to have put to death the stowaway. Maclaren is a nilist with a bitterness that he represses with heroic self-control. A bitterness that's lead him to live on the edge of space between civilized life and the wilderness ever since he lost his original livelihood by fighting on the losing side of a war. He's conflicted between the relative peace of the former and the appealing freedom to live as one pleases in the latter. Eventually, if Whedon doesn't develops teh charcter logically, Maclaren will succumb to a Freikorp type organization seducing him with an illusionary hope of ordered tranquility
Conquistadores, bandeirantes, voyageurs and settlers
Space won't be colonized solely by private enterprise nor will entrepreneurship be necessarily rewarded. The state is neither a friend nor an enemy but a necessary institution in human affairs
It's precisely this enduring theme with American sci-fi that turns me off: the plucky band of individualistic partners owing allegiance to no one but themselves and have no need of any kind of authourity because they self suffice.
I no more want private enterprise to monopolize space colonization any more than the state. I suspect that given the complexity of the undertaking, there will be situations that will be reminiscent of the Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian colonizations as well as private initiatives à la early British colonization or even joint private/public ventures
In any case, I'll be impressed the day when some American sci-fi writer/producer reimagines the Spanish, Portuguese, French or Russian colonial periods with the same sympathetic passion as the American. Why? Richard Morse explains that:
Many think of the Spanish colonization of America as the work of free-acting conqusitadores and their followers avid for products of soil and subsoil, in particular gold and silver, and for servile labour to be used by extracting them. Others, who applaud the individualism of the self-reliant settlements of Anglo America, criticize Spain for having stifled colonial development with statism, bureaucracy and discrimination against the early settlers....[T]he conquistador was not a free entrepreneur under a private contract. He was under teh continuing obligations to ask the crown for privileges, such as grants of Indian labor. His contract (capitulación) linked freely assembling social forces with the power of the stat, converting them to political elements. The state then was a colonizing state (estado populador), operating through laws customs and judicial and administrative decisions. Grants of soil and subsoil were founded in royal concession, not in private law. Colonization implied the organizing of civil and ecclestiastical jurisdictions and hierarchies; a regime of defense, taxation and tribute; and systems of schools and universities. Not only did economic life and claims to land have their origins in the state but the whole colonizing process was conceived as having the 'civilizing' function of transmitting Western Christian culture
[pp 95-96:"Claims of political tradition" in Richard M Morse:
New World Sounding: culture and ideologies in the Americas]
How fascinating for a writer to cover such a vast, varied and alternative subject matter! Reintepreting Spanish, French, Portuguese and Russian colonialism would be a most welcome change of pace from yet another reinterpretation of the American wild west.
Religion
I'll give Whedon credit for neither ignorning religion completely nor showing too much hostility towards it. Nonetheless, I'm somehwat bored with the typical American approach of mixing Dissident religiosity with a mishmash of gnostism and do it yourself theologies. As with the plea to reinterpret the colonial experiences of the other Europeans, so too with religions. I'd appreciate a sci-fi show that integrates the richeness of the Catholic- with its Western and Eastern rites- the Orthodox, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu religions and their interactions just like in real life.
Esthetics
Finally, I want to comment briefly about the shows esthetics. They're deplorable. I haven't seen a show that's so intent in denuding the richness and senuality of colour to its minimalist expression. The visual presentation is that of washed out images. I suspect that's in keeping with the reintrpretation of both the early colonial and post civil war colonization which eschewed 'extravagance' and 'excess' How unfortunatee because the near absence of colour irks my Mediterranean sensibilities which loves colour, the stronger and more vivid; the more beautiful and more sensual.
The esthetics also jar. On the one hand, the Firefly is a relatively sophisticated space craft; yet on many of the planets, the inhabitants travel by horse or animal driven wagons. Why? It makes no sense not to see cars or other automated forms of transportation. There's no seamlessness between the various everyday objects of life. There are wooden houses but no plastics; metals but no nonferrous materials. The list goes on. Whedon would've benefitted if he had looked at the Minority report movie.
There you have it. My own thoughts on Firefly.
