Let's patronise!

It hit me in the eye last week!

I haven't changed my blog-trawling habits, it's still the same round of craft-oriented people I check out on a daily basis, but for some reason I suddenly became aware of something. Maybe it was there before, but I'm sure in some cases it is a comparatively new development.

ADS!

Voici déjà quelques mois, les annonces vantant les charmes de jolies demoiselles d'Europe de l'Est sur le blog de mon ami gallois lui avait déjà valu une gentille raillerie de ma part, mais aujourd'hui je me sens cernée.
C'est l'apparition de petites vidéos incrustées qui a provoqué le déclic.
Dites-moi les copines, les clopinettes que Google vous dispense peut-être pour l'autoriser à scruter votre prose afin de l'accompagner de réclames plus ou moins incongrues justifient-elles cette invasion? S'est-elle faite (je n'ose le croire) à l'insu de votre plein gré?
Et si ça se trouve, les nouveaux paramètres de Blogger, que j'ai approuvés sans lire en détail tous les paragraphes en petits caractères, font que chez moi aussi, ces intrusions commerciales font florès....
Say it ain't so, Joe, please!

Ce n'est qu'un début...

et pour continuer le combat, on peut aller ici

Il parait que tu as un blog...

I don't really publicise it, so it's always with a mixture of surprise, pride and worry that I hear the sentence : "so I hear you've got a blog..." especially a blog like this. Those who know me as a middle-aged high-school teacher may find the knitterly pursuits a little shallow and I suspect some of the knitters who land here via ravelry sometimes get put off by the radical views.

J'ai donc jeté un coup d'oeil oblique à Emre ce matin, quand il a fait allusion à ce blog, dont il ignorait l'existence, mais qu'il allait passer voir. Je me suis bien gardée de lui en donner l'adresse. Si tu le trouves Emre, je salue ta perspicacité. Laisse-moi un petit signe de ton passage.

We were on our way to another big demo in Marseille, to protest the pension reform; but truly to show how sick and tired we all are of a government that is slashing everything that holds the country together, what still provides a modicum of protection and security to the less privileged among us, like access to health care, education and other public services.

Je ne sais pas ce soir quelle ampleur avait la mobilisation dans la rue, mais j'aimerais que tous nous ayons la forme de Sylvie, prête à faire face et à escalader des murs d'injustice:

I'm not religious

but....
J'ai adoré cette initiative de cyb sur Facebook : au moment où des cinglés prônent l'autodafé le 11 septembre, elle vous propose d'acheter le Coran au lieu de le brûler.
Histoire de montrer que la tolérance est plus importante que jamais.

So here is the message:

I believe that love is stronger than hate, that compassion is more effective than combat, and that silence is as good as an endorsement.
I declare the 11th of September to be International Buy A Q’uran Day.
I have no authority to do so, just the faith that others who are horrified by intolerant, ignorant, inflammatory actions of some countrymen will decide that this is a time to stand up for peace, to say, We Do Not Endorse This, to donate a holy book to a place of worship, to purchase a holy text not of their own tradition, to actively promote the freedom of religion on which our country was founded.
Maybe we own a Q’uran already. Perhaps finances are sticky, and we can’t afford to buy books now. Can we take a text from our shelf, from our local library, out in public to read? Let us show our support of religious tolerance no matter our monetary situation. If we can, let us purchase more than one Q’uran, in order to read one and to donate the others. If there are things in the text that make us uncomfortable, let us return to the holy texts of our own traditions, and re-read them to investigate whether there are passages therein which do not support our notions of faith and spirituality.
Please, invite everyone to this “event”. Let us seek first to understand, to be the change we wish to see in the world. Let us fight fire with water, sweet clear water dipped from a well of knowledge, shared with everyone who thirsts for kindness, patience and tolerance.
Let us love one another and together wage a Peacewar that includes everyone everywhere.
I embrace you all.

Marching with the force

The trouble with very big demos in Marseille is that teachers usually bring up the rear, except when there are students, and then they march last. I suppose as a long-suffering and self-effacing lot, we don't insist on grabbing first places to catch media attention.

The result is that we have to stand around waiting for every one else to have moved on before we can start. Yesterday, two hours after the first demonstrators had set off, we were still waiting, wearily clutching our signs and banners.

Nous avons donc décidé d'aller taper l'incruste chez d'autres corps qui défilaient, en remontant le cortège. C'est ainsi que nous avons fait un petit bout de chemin avec les policiers du SGP,



puis rejoint le collectif des handicapés "ni pauvre ni soumis".

Si ça vous dit

Je ne pourrai pas y aller, hélas, mais c'est de bon coeur que je fais la pub'

Et voici l'adresse du site: en plus, il y aura un atelier-tricot le samedi après-midi.

Middlesex

Il y a quelques jours j'ai terminé ce livre, à regret.
J'aimerais bien en être à nouveau aux premières pages, comme on a la nostalgie du début des vacances, ou d'une enfance dorée.

Of course gender is at the heart of the book, as may be surmised from the allusion in the title. But even though that topic is explored in a very original and sensitive way, what is to me the true magic of this novel is that it takes us travelling through time to visit the history of the Stephanides family, Greeks from Smyrna, who carry to the New World the heritage of their troubled culture: Greek tragedy, the deep and bitter enmity between Turks and Greeks, and the symbolism of the silk thread, spun from the cocoons treasured by Desdemona, the grandmother.

C'est un roman qui parle à ceux dont les racines ressemblent à des fils qui se tendent d'une rive à l'autre; tout est ambigu dans le monde, et le/la narrateur/narratrice nous renvoie aux êtres premiers évoqués par Platon, être doubles que les dieux ont coupés en deux, et qui cherchent à recoller les morceaux.

Mais malgré ces thèmes "lourds", Jeffrey Eugenides réussit à conserver une légèreté de ton, un humour élégant qui mérité bien ici sa définition de "politesse du désespoir."

There is one thing I regret however: was it to pander to the public's taste for happy endings, or just to show that the story is truly American? There is a happy ending.

Satisfaction

N'est-ce pas satisfaisant de boucler des ouvrages à temps pour la fin des vacances (pour ne pas dire la rentrée?) Ce matin j'ai mis la dernière main à deux réalisations qui vont s'en aller vivre leur vie chez leur destinataire.

The cropped pants are for my dear friend Cathy, copied from a pair we saw on the market together. She liked them, but was not willing to fork out 35 euros for them, so I offered to make her something similar. I found some black fabric in my ample stash, she did the fiddly little pleating at the bottom, and I did the rest. The eyelets for the drawstring are a little cockeyed, but I hope she doesn't notice.

Et bien sûr, il y a le fameux Rogue, fini, monté, bloqué, et débarrassé de ses petits fils qui dépassent. (Enfin, je sais que parfois il y en a qui apparaissent soudain après quelques jours de clandestinité, mais j'ai fait de mon mieux.) Alex a l'air content, alors que demande le peuple?

Et puis en cette fin d'août, celles que j'appelle les reines de l'incruste prennent leurs aises: ce sont les fleurs qui se ressèment un peu partout, sans qu'on leur ait rien demandé.

It started out as a single pot bought at a plant fair about twelve years ago, and now it has somehow managed to propel itself into most of the pots on the terrace and has made it to the flower beds around it. It is a sort of chive, which I bought as "Chinese chive", with flat leaves  and pretty white flowers that last for weeks.

The other one was here when we bought the house, in a kind of cement tub by the kitchen door. Now it is to be found everywhere there is room for it to grow, even though I pull out its tubers regularly. It doesn't seem to bear me any grudge for that.