chirac goes bush

Today, Jacques Chirac all but declared war on Iran. The French president made a fine U-turn with respect to 2003 and is now fully in line with George WMD Bush. Chirac promised to use his nukes, so splendidly tested in the South Pacific in the mid-1990s, to free the world of rogue states. And first in line these days is, of course, Iran, whose president discovered, shortly after being elected, that he has absolutely nothing to offer to his eager people but savage words directed at a vilified world. He is desparately trying to distract Iranians from the misery in their country and quell their anger at tyrrany and religious vice.

Big talk and ruthless oppression are nothing new around the world, except this guy is building a bomb. The German secret service reported - since when do secret services report? - that he might only be a few months short of his goal. This is much more than the infamous 45 minutes that Blair, oddly quiet these days, claimed of Iraq three years ago, but all the more believable. At the rate things are going, there can be no doubt that something cataclysmic will happen. I have no desire to imagine what the Middle East will look like if Iran and the Western world, and Israel as an obvious first target, will duke it out on the nuclear battle field. All the wars, aggression, terror attacks, and every-day atrocities that the region has seen in the last 60 years will look like a Sunday at the beach in comparison.

free speech

One of the things France is rightfully proud of is the telecommunication infrastructure. I have never seen anyone use a laptop while sitting in a cafe or on the train, but when the French are at home they like to surf the web with the speed of the TGV Marseille-Paris. A dozen companies constantly top one another with ever more spectacular offers. I signed up as soon as I found an apartment, which was soon connected to the world through an 8Mbit/s ADSL line that ends in an inconspicuous black box. This little box of magic talks to my computer for internet access, my telephone for calls, and my TV for about 40 useless stations. All for a flat fee of 23 euros per month.

This was only the beginning, though. Progess doesn't stop, in particular in anything IT related. So this evening I discovered that I can upgrade my line to 20MBit/s and, for an extra 9 euros per month, get all my phone calls absolutely free. This doesn't just include France. No, the entire European Union, Canada, the US, India, and China are covered. As neuf.fr promises, I can now talk to half the world's population for free. Why I would want to do that is a question they don't have an answer for, but one thing is sure. Once my service is modified (in three weeks or so), I won't have the slightest excuse for not talking to my friends. Make me call you back!

google earth

It can only be a question of time until Google achieves world domination. For many years, this has been the search engine of my choice (and of everyone else's as well, it seems). The launch of Google maps has vastly improved online cartography, and local Google will change the way you look at your city (once it is covered). Google book search might be the best thing to happen since the Sumerians started collecting clay tablet in their temples. All these services are offered online without the need for software to be installed on your computer. I'm all for that.

I'm less enthusiastic when a company, be it Google or anything else, claims it needs the power of my laptop for their offerings to work. Thus I have not made use of Google earth yet. I might have to change my mind, though. This morning I came upon a little gallery that Russell Standring created for his grenoblecycling.com pages, and I must confess that I'm extremely impressed. Now I don't even have to leave my desk in order to ride up mountains.

Hey baby

The other day I walked over to the climbing gym next door to get a membership and to start feeling some (fake) rock again. I gave my name, paid my buck or two, and was on my way to losing serious skin on my fingertips. Something was missing, though.

Today I went snowboarding for the first time this season. We drove up to Sept Laux, a resort in the Belledonne, a short hour's drive from Grenoble. It seemed that every other slope was decorated with slalom poles or downhill gates.

There was no race going on, and no one seemed to mind if people took a chance on the challenge. That's when it finally dawned on me what had been missing in the climbing gym. In stark contrast to when I lived in the US, I had no waivers to sign, no proof of insurance to show, and no one lectured me on the dangers inherent in rock climbing. The same laid-back attitude today in the snow - no waivers, no warnings.

It is so refreshing not to be treated like a baby anymore. You are responsible for your own actions. No one tells you that coffee is hot or that knives are sharp. People seem to know. If you fall off a cliff or impale yourself on your skis, it's your own fault. If you can't handle that, don't go out and play.

But play I did. There was one thing that I could hardly handle, though - the snow. To my spoiled eyes, it looked like grated ice. Falling hurt, after six years in Utah a completely new experience, and not a pleasant one. I ought to go have my board waxed and my edged sharpened. Or maybe I'm just a baby and should stay inside.

bonne année

The new year is already one week old, but I say my greeting anyway because I've only today returned to France. I spent Chrismas and New Year's with family and friends more or less far away. Today I came back from Indiana.

Exhausted from long hours of air and rail travel interrupted by extended waiting periods in chairs that looked like they were designed exclusively for the good looks, I put "Downfall" into my computer. Fifteen minutes later, after much subdued mumbling around me and countless furtive glances at the screen by my seat neighbors, I abruptly end the film. More than 20 hours into my voyage I don't feel like explaining to a Frenchman why I'm staring at Hitler and swastikas galore. This would be a challenging excercise even if it was three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon.

Instead, I opt for a rerun of "Crash", my clear favorite for movie of the year 2005. It's hard to say what the movie really is about. It is an intense, highly stylized and artistic parable of, well, of what? Of humans? Of live? Of ignorance? Of California? To me it is a reminder that every one is a racist, in that everyone has evident or subconscious racial preconceptions that influence how we interact with strangers. This in itself is no problem in my opinion, as long as we act with compassion and humanity and are never locked in our judgment.

"Crash" traces 36 hours in the lifes of about two handful of people whose paths cross over and over again, often unknown to them. Tragedy and happiness, drama and joy, crime and charity, love and hate are so close together that one single action of any one of the actors, even one word or a mere gesture, can tip the scale into one or the other direction.

Before the movie ends, I arrive in Grenoble. Walking through the dark city, my own little multiracial home, I pass Lebanese kebab shops and Armenian grocery stores, Chinese restaurants and African art galleries. I buy a baguette, which doubles as a handwarmer, pass by my favorite Vietmamese store where the smells of tea, spices and overripe bananas unmistakably tell me that I've arrived, enter my entryway and am home.

Happy new year to all who happen to read this.

distant sounds

It is as if the chair underneath me had dissolved. I feel completely detatched from the material world. A dense envelope of sublime harmony engulfs me. The Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra plays Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No 1, and Boris Berezovsky is caressing the instrument as if it were his muse. It's an evening to forget reality, to sit back, relax and let music elevate the spirit. My thoughts wander on their own volition.

Things I miss about Salt Lake come back to my mind. Endless months of sunshine with no rain that would spoil nights out. The Roasting Company serving the tastiest coffee within a few-hundred-mile radius. Walks at sunset when the last rays would soak green lawns and red brick in a intensly golden softness. Riding my mountain bike down the Original Trail on the other side of Big Mountain in summer, or dropping into four feet of powder the day Mineral Basin opened. Hearing Beethoven's Fourth symphony at Abravanel Hall.

Abruptly I awake. Is it possible to miss cultural sophistication after leaving Salt Lake, the city of Temple Square, rugged outdoors types, and endless suburbia? A few months ago I started to long for classical music. The desire became a craving, unfulfillable. Now I'm suffering badly from deprivation because Grenoble doesn't have a symphony hall. French cultivation is outclassed in the music department by a hick town out west. And Boris Berezovsky keeps visiting my CD player. Night after night.

good bye, blue sky

About two weeks ago, it looked like winter was finally arriving. I awoke in the morning to a good 15 inches of snow on the ground and had to take the bus to lab. The snow started melting almost immediately and was only a wet memory two short days later. Since then, it has rained almost every day. The mountains had probably got a good amount of powder, but that was hard to tell from the valley. The clouds hang so low that the mountains were invisible for more than ten days.

This weekend brought change. Sunday was the second dry day in a row and for me the last day of the year going on a ride. It was pretty cold, but I was bundled up in five layers and not afraid of the frost. I really needed to move, especially since skiing season still hasn't started yet, despite all the precipitation.

So I grabbed my Cannondale and rode along the Isère to warm up. After about 15 miles I ventured into the Vercors. Since it's always arctic up there, I didn't plan on riding all the way to the top. I just wanted to give my legs a last little workout and see where the snow started. In the end I climbed quite high and was surrounded by nothing but white for a good while. Eventually, my frozen fingers made me turn around. They warmed up on the descent by some bizarre biological process all the while the wind sucked all heat from the rest of my body.

It ended up being a good two-and-a-half-hour ride without much pain or undue suffering. Still, I was amazed to see all the other riders out there. In summer I was wondering why so few are out on their bikes. Now it seems that about the same number (and probably the same people) ride in winter too. You might just have to be hard core to enjoy cycling around Grenoble where every other climb is a Cottonwood Canyon. I'm in good company.

shoot to kill

You have to be stupid or drunk to claim, aboard a commercial airliner, to have a bomb in your backpack. Especially if you don't have one. You must expect to have guns pointed at you by those whose job it is to keep us safe. You will be neutralized. But how? In light of recent developments in the field of efficient interrogation and detainment techniques, what are your options?

If you are not a seasoned terrorist but a deranged fool or just an imbecile, you might think it's better to get killed by a rifle shot than being transported to an undisclosed location where Vice President Dick Cheney is personally going to pull you toe nails out. You would of course be wrong because the Vice President doesn't get his hands dirty, and dead.

All those who are still alive, and not being tortured, should take a few minutes to contemplate where our world is drifting to. This is the second time in a few months that a person has been killed in public space by law enforcers. Is shooting to kill at a slight suspicion the right response to the dangers that Western civilization faces? And what are the gravest dangers our civilization faces? Whose zeal is more worrying? And what are you going to do when the officer in black calls your name from behind you?