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Merci de choisir un ou plusieurs textes plutôt que d'imprimer la totalité... Les arbres vous sont reconnaissants...
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Suivi : je n'ai pas noté avec qui j'avais parlé du mot "scatter", mais je viens de me rendre compte que la chanson de Johnny Cleeg est "Scatterlings of Africa" et non pas "Scatterings". C'est la même origine, mais la terminaison "ling" correspond à un être ou chose, ici celui qui se trouve éparpillé. Voir aussi changeling, youngling, duckling, dumpling, hireling, yearling...
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View the calendar of US primaries and caucuses at this website: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P04/events.phtml?format=chronological

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Week 5, 2004
THE REGULARS: Summary
A) Song of the week: "Daydreamer" (Le mal aimé) sung by Claude François 
B) Penguin Readers: Australian Open -- Agassi Again?  [Le texte plus facile de la semaine. Alors que c'est la saison de l'Open de tennis d'Australie, un retour vers l'édition 2001.]
C) The New York Times/Vows: Jessica Kaminsky and Dave Rock http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/fashion/weddings/18VOWS.html
[Histoires de mariages : elle trouve que romantique chez lui le tatouage du prénom de sa copine et décide de prendre la place de celle-ci]
D) The New York Times/The Ethicist [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie : Puis-je acheter une maison saisie par une banque ? Dois-je dire de manière explicite que je n'ai jamais obtenu le diplôme de la fac prestigieuse où j'ai fait mes études ?]
E) Slate/Dear Prudence: You're a Judgmental One, Mr. Grinch [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Quel est l'avis de Prudie sur les cartes de voeux sous forme de lettre photocopiée ? Que faire avec ma future belle-mère qui veut tout contrôler ? Dois-je inviter à mon mariage une bonne amie de mon fiancé avec qui elle a couché alors que moi je suis vierge ? Pourquoi les femmes que je rencontre par des agences matrimoniales en ligne arrêtent-elles de me répondre sans crirer gare ?]
F) Miss Manners: Terseness in Telecommunication [Que comprendre des mises en garde qui figurent en bas des courriels que je reçois ? Quand mes invités décommandent à la dernière minute, puis-je inviter d'autres pour ne pas gaspiller le repas ?]

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A) Song of the week: "Daydreamer" (Le mal aimé) sung by Claude François 

DAYDREAMER (also known as LE MAL AIME)

I remember April, when the sun was in the sky
Love was burning in your eyes
Nothing in the world could bother me
Cause I was living in a world of ecstasy
But now you're gone
I'm just a daydreamer, I'm walking in the rain
Chasing after rainbows, I may never find again
Life is much to beautiful, to live it all alone
Oh how much I need someone, to call my very own

Now the summers over, and I found myself alone
With only memories of you
I was so in love, that I couldn't see
Cause I was living in a world, that was make believe
But now your gone
I'm just a daydreamer, I'm walking in the rain
Chasing after rainbows, I may never find again
Life is much to beautiful, to live it all alone
Oh how much I need someone, to call my very own

I'm just a daydreamer, I'm walking in the rain
Chasing after rainbows, I may never find again
Life is much to beautiful, to live it all alone
Oh how much I need someone, to call my very own

I'm just a daydreamer, I'm walking in the rain
Chasing after rainbows, I may never find again
Life is much to beautiful, to live it all alone
Oh how much I need someone, to call my very own

I'm just a daydreamer baby

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It's January and time for the Australian Open, the first of the four major international tennis tournaments of the year. This important tournament takes place in Melbourne. Last year half a million people paid to go and watch the game at Melbourne Park – one of the most modern stadiums in the world.

Until the 1980s the Australian Open was only interesting for Australians. Then, in 1987, the Swede, Stefan Edberg beat the Australian Pat Cash in an extraordinary match that the tennis world has never forgotten. Since then the Australian Open has become one of the top four tennis tournaments. It is popular with women tennis players because the prize money is the same for both men and women players – $450,000 for the winner of the singles game. At Wimbledon, for example, the men's singles prize last year was £477, 500, but the women's prize was £430,000.

Players say that the tournament is not easy. It is played in the heat of the Australian summer and the courts get very hot. They have a special surface called Rebound Ace that gets so hot you could probably cook on it!

Who are the big tennis names that people are talking about this year? Last year the American, Lindsay Davenport, won the women's singles. But the top world female tennis player – Martina Hingis – is looking good this year. She has already won the Australian Open three times – perhaps she'll do it again. And then there are the two American sisters, Venus and Serena Williams. Elder sister Venus won both Wimbledon and the US Open last year against Lindsay Davenport, while her sister Serena won the US Open in 1999. But Serena is already out of the tournament – she lost her game against Martina Hingis. The women’s singles is very exciting this year because the players are all so good.

In the men's singles, last year's Australian Open champion, André Agassi, is the player that people think will win. Aged 29, this exciting player has won six major tennis championships. When Agassi was younger, people were not sure that he would become a very important player. They could see he was an excellent player, but he seemed to think too much about his appearance. In those days, Agassi had long fair hair and wore unusual clothes. Then in 1992, Agassi won the British Wimbledon Tennis Championship, and people became really interested in him. Now, Agassi has cut his hair off and is no longer quite so beautiful. But he is still interesting to read about. For some years he was married to the film star Brooke Shields. Then they divorced and now the tennis player is seeing the world-famous tennis champion, Steffi Graf. But none of this stops Agassi playing wonderful tennis. The question is, can he win the Australian Open for a third time? He won last year, and also won in 1995. Many people would like him to win again.

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Months later, she realized that she was to be Mr. Rock's next girlfriend.

They wound up at a poolside barbecue in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve 1998. Ms. Kaminsky's boyfriend had chosen not to talk, let alone to accompany the group to festivities afterward. Mr. Rock, deep in the throes of a crush on her, moved in for a midnight kiss. After that, Mr. Rock's flesh-and-ink tribute took on a life of its own. "Within the first month, I said, `Let's talk about the tattoo,' " Ms. Kaminsky recalled. " `It's gotta go.' "

Eight hours of painful needlework later, "Katie" had been transformed into a Japanese-style filmstrip of a koi fighting its way upstream.

Ms. Kaminsky was undergoing a transformation of her own. "She is incredibly clean, and everything she touches is beautifully put together," said Amanda Lasher, a lifelong friend. "Dave was a poster boy for grunge," she added of Mr. Rock, now 33 and a partner in Workaround Films in Hollywood. And then there was his rambling, run-down house, which he shared with a group of loud-living musicians. "When she spent the night in this pit, I knew she must love this guy," Ms. Lasher said. She continued: "She's introduced him to the finer things in life. I know he's changed her, but sometimes I have trouble figuring out exactly how."

Last New Year's Eve, they were married at the spare, vaulted Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan, where glass cylinders filled with flowers and berries stood in for artwork. The bride wore a strapless fairy princess gown that, she acknowledged, needed months of exercise to adapt to.

After the ceremony, guests decked themselves in party hats and danced to a frenetic Latin jazz band. As expected, writers were out in force, including Jules Feiffer, A. R. Gurney and Justice Edwin Torres of State Supreme Court, who wrote "Carlito's Way." He also officiated. At about 1 a.m., Mel Brooks, who began life as Melvin Kaminsky and is a cousin of the bride's father, arrived from a cast party for "The Producers," his Broadway show.

Before the wedding, the bride said Mr. Brooks had provided support for her career as a television comedy writer. (Ms. Kaminsky wrote last season for the ABC sitcom "Hope and Faith.") "I love writing, and comedy is kind of in my blood," said Ms. Kaminsky, who views her relationship with her husband in literary terms. "Dave is my best editor," she said. "He sees everything before anyone else, ever."

Mr. Rock sees it a little differently. "One of the novel things about this relationship over others I've had is that it keeps improving instead of deteriorating," he said after the wedding. "It's a very healthy, satisfying relationship, pretty modern, pretty autonomous. We do our own thing, but when we're together we have a lot to share." Mr. Rock will not be getting a tattoo that says `Jessica' any time soon. "I guess it's a curse," Ms. Kaminsky said at the thought of her name indelibly etched on her husband's body. "I don't think you should do it if you want the relationship to last."

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It is not just that you didn't cause any family to lose its home -- you did not -- but that foreclosure can be an acceptable part of a financial system. No bank lends money unless it is confident of being repaid. Using the home itself to back a mortgage allows people to buy one who otherwise could not, albeit with the risk that they may fail to make their payments and, sadly, could lose their homes.

What is necessary is that the borrower be given every opportunity to repay. Contingencies must be established to cope with illness or job loss or other unexpected catastrophes that could befall a borrower. That is, the mortgage system must be fair, flexible and humane. If it is, foreclosures should be few and buying a home that has been through one is legitimate. You might query the bank about its policies and about the history of the particular house you want to buy.

That said, I myself would be reluctant to buy one. A home is suffused with feeling; it's where you live. I wouldn't want it tainted with the residue of the previous owner's ill fortune. But it is emotion, not ethics, that would keep me from buying a foreclosed house. (Except one previously owned by a disgraced former head of a Fortune 500 company.)
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Q:
I worked my way through a prestigious university but, because of economic circumstances, never graduated, something that still leaves me ashamed. When colleagues ask, ''When did you graduate?'' I often answer, ''I finished in 19xx,'' creating the impression that I graduated. I don't have to disclose my every failure, but I regret being deceptive. Should I make it clear that I did not graduate from Prestigious U.? D. A., Redwood City, Calif.

A:
The real answer is psychological, not ethical: have some self-respect. There's no dishonor in not graduating from, for example, Harvard. Nearly everyone on earth hasn't graduated from Harvard. To work long hours while shouldering a rigorous academic burden is something to be proud of. Why not just say you went to Prestigious U. but dropped out to make a living? That will only add glamour to your life. You've become a productive member of society while overcoming obstacles.

You're doing what 17th-century English Catholics living under Protestant oppression called ''equivocating.'' Rather than be drawn and quartered, some Catholics would deftly respond to an inquisitor with an answer that was in some sense true but likely to be misinterpreted. Q: Have you engaged in forbidden religious practices? A: I have not. (The rationale being, they are not forbidden by God.) Many were as troubled as are you by this evasion.

To deceive people, even passively, is (in most cases) not ethical. But avoiding the question altogether is fine (if socially awkward); no casual acquaintance is entitled to demand a curriculum vitae.

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E) Slate/Dear Prudence: You're a Judgmental One, Mr. Grinch [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : Quel est l'avis de Prudie sur les cartes de voeux sous forme de lettre photocopiée ? Que faire avec ma future belle-mère qui veut tout contrôler ? Dois-je inviter à mon mariage une bonne amie de mon fiancé avec qui elle a couché alors que moi je suis vierge ? Pourquoi les femmes que je rencontre par des agences matrimoniales en ligne arrêtent-elles de me répondre sans crirer gare ?]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2093509/
dear prudence: You're a Judgmental One, Mr. Grinch
Are those endlessly bragging, mass-mailed Christmas letters rude?
Posted Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004, at 4:34 AM PT

Dear Prudence,
Now that it's behind us, could you please give the authoritative position on the McChristmas card? You know—those mass mailings of Christmas letters with the picture of the kids and the glowing account of the whole family's goings-on? Is it courteous to spread good tidings by photocopy, or should you personalize your Christmas cheer? I have always thought that if you don't care enough to write personalized letters in your own handwriting, then you shouldn't be writing at all. There is something insulting about receiving a letter that was sent to you and a hundred others. Have you noticed, by the way, that all the news is good news in those letters? That little Jimmy is always the best in soccer, little Janie is the top of her class, and husband Bob is making tons of money? It seems to me that the stock and trade of the McChristmas card is shameless self-promotion. Am I being too judgmental?

—Seeking Mannerly Wisdom

Dear Seek,
Prudie's opinion on this matter would in no way be authoritative, but she finds these missives very funny. As for the duplicative nature of "Christmas letters," it really could be no other way. Who in their right mind, or even their left, would write out these things dozens of times? And yes, Prudie has noticed that all the news is of good fortune and accomplishment, though she is waiting for the family newsletter that tells of Dad going away for 2-7 due to creativity on his tax return and reports of both kids holding up well in rehab. It is the thinly veiled bragging that seems more objectionable to Prudie than the mass production, so perhaps we are both judgmental.

—Prudie, disparagingly
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Dear Prudence,
I desperately need your advice! I have a wonderful fiance. The problem is my future mother-in-law, "Claire." When my fiance and I started dating almost three years ago, Claire was still upset over the breakup of her own marriage four years earlier. My fiance's father left her and shortly thereafter remarried. Claire would talk to me about her former husband and cry about what had happened. At first I thought I was helping her by listening, but the longer I hung out with her I realized she wasn't doing anything to move past it, so I decided not to see her as much. Once my fiance and I announced our engagement, relations between Claire and me became more strained. Because I'd heard about all the stress of my fiance's brother's wedding due to Claire inviting all of her co-workers, grad-school classmates and five friends of someone's sister—and because my fiance and I want a small wedding—I was firm from the beginning that we were only going to invite OUR close friends and family, not everyone that we (and she) knew. From the beginning, she tried to choose the dates of our wedding and the bridesmaids' luncheon, pitched a fit when we told her we weren't going to invite a friend of her daughter's (whom we don't really know), and suggested we use her church instead of the ones we were looking at because hers was bigger. She still gets upset any time her sons and daughter see her ex, and she lets me and my future sister-in-law know that they are her sons first before they are our husbands. Because I'm horrified by all of the above, I have no desire to be close friends with my future mother-in-law. I have agreed to be cordial when I see her, but I'm trying to keep my distance. My fiance thinks I have a grudge against her and is upset that I am reluctant to see her. The fights that we are having about this are beginning to wear on me! What should I do?

—Fed Up but Hopeful You Can Help!

Dear Fed,
Forgive the oxymoron, but good grief! This woman is a mess, and if her son doesn't see it, you are in for a rough ride. She is unhappy, bossy, meddlesome, and possessive. Moreover, the whole package has apron strings around it. This is perhaps not what you wanted to hear, but an old rule of human behavior is that if things are hairy before the wedding, just wait till after. If your young man can't interpret his mother's behavior, you will have your hands full. It may sound drastic, but Prudie suggests that you both go—now—to a couples' counselor to establish some ground rules and also to improve the putative groom's understanding of what's going on with his mother. He seems not to have a clue. Good luck.

—Prudie, autonomously
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Dear Prudie,
My boyfriend and I are planning to get married once I graduate from college next year. The question I have for you is this: He wants to invite one of his ex-girlfriends. He and this girl were good friends before they dated, and they still are. The problem I have with her being there is that they slept together when they were dating. I don't feel I would be comfortable having her presence reminding me of that. (I'm saving myself till marriage.) I would prefer that she not come, but on the other hand, I don't want to hurt my boyfriend's feelings or have him not want me to invite any of my male friends (none of whom I dated, but some I did have crushes on). How should I bring up the subject that I would not feel comfortable with this girl at my wedding?

—Blushing Bride-To-Be

Dear Blush,
Prudie hopes you will reconsider and not make a fuss about this. Their ongoing friendship should trump the fact that they were at one time intimate. Prudie understands the emotional aspect of your wish, but it is always useful to strive for maturity and perspective ... which, in this case, would be to let the past stay the past. It is admirable that you will be a virgin when you marry, but realism demands that you factor in the many people of marriageable age who are not. In your case, the invitations are not out yet; in fact, it doesn't sound like they're even printed. So try to psyche yourself up to feel generous and self-confident instead of jealous and insecure for the time when you do make out the guest list. You will feel the better for it.

—Prudie, sagaciously
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Dear Prudie,
I have started using Internet dating services to try to find someone with whom I could meet, date, and who knows? My question has to do with my having had a good start with some women, who, without any notice just stop the correspondence. Conceivably, I may have said something that turned them off, and they decided not to write any more. So it goes, but shouldn't they say something rather than just quitting writing? I think I would rather have a "You are doing nothing for me" or "You went too far with a description of yourself/job/dreams." What do you think? Does etiquette require some announcement that the getting-to-know-you is over?

—Just Wondering

Dear Just,
Internet dating is not the first thing that comes to mind when mentioning the word "etiquette." The very nature of cyber-talking with faceless, anonymous people lends itself to thoughtlessness, rudeness, and, alas, callousness. Prudie guesses that the women who've pressed the delete button on you are chicken about saying they're no longer interested. Being direct is not necessarily an attribute of strangers—or sometimes even friends.

—Prudie, namelessly

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I recently received an e-mail that had the following statement at the bottom, which I will copy verbatim:

"This e-mail may display a telegraphic style that gives the false impression of curtness or insensitivity. Also, it may contain confidential or privileged information. If it is received in error, kindly delete it and notify sender. Thank you."

It appears that the sender's company requires this statement to be attached to the end of every e-mail.

I have several questions about the first sentence. Should I take it as a preemptive apology? Or an instruction not to be offended about what would otherwise be offensive? Do you believe it is appropriate to include such a sentence in e-mails? Do you recommend that other companies adopt this approach?

And what is "a telegraphic style," anyway? I'm only 34, so I've never sent or received a telegram.

A:
Miss Manners commiserates with you for having missed the excitement of receiving a telegram (although under some circumstances, they also brought tragedy). As telegrams were expensive and each word added to the charge, they were written and sent sparingly, investing them with momentous importance.

For example:

"ELOPED PLEASE FORGIVE STOP MADLY HAPPY."

"RETURN IMMEDIATELY STOP MOTHER HYSTERICAL STOP FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES STOP LOVE FATHER"

Some translation may be in order here. Telegrams lacked punctuation and lowercase letters, so "stop" indicated the end of a sentence fragment, and the messages, however animated, should not be interpreted as shouts.

But is e-mail generally any clearer, for all its unlimited wordage and symbols?

Terseness doesn't look so bad, now that we are sinking under the frequency and verbosity of e-mail. Miss Manners favors recycling that aspect of telegraphic style, although not the stops and caps. Prophylactic apologies do seem superfluous but should be interpreted as lack of practice at getting to the point, rather than as a prelude to insult.
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Dear Miss Manners:

We had a small dinner party planned (just another couple and their children), and the food was cooking and hors d'oeuvres out when they called to say they couldn't make it.

The food was not going to keep well as leftovers. We contemplated (but didn't) calling nearby friends and asking them over at the last minute. Obviously, we would have had to say that they were pinch-hitting for another couple.

Would this have been a thrifty means of saving the evening and sharing our repast, or a rude attempt to swap guests?

A:
It depends on whom you invite.

Dear friends whom you often entertain would be charmed if you confessed your plight and begged them to help you eat your way out of it. Social life being as unreliable as it is, they should be grateful not only for an unexpected evening out but also for having friends whom they can call upon in an emergency.

People whom you owe would not be grateful. To them it becomes obvious that you only reach for them in an emergency.

But shouldn't you be bringing this food to the hospital, where your guests are recovering from their last-minute accident, or to their funerals?

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The Wacky Warning Label Contest, now in it's seventh year, is conducted by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, to reveal how lawsuits, and fear of lawsuits, have prompted many manufacturers to issue warnings against even obvious misuses of consumer products.

The winning labels were selected from a list of M-LAW's finalists by listeners of the Dick Purtan show on Detroit radio station, WOMC-FM 104.3. The fishing lure warning actually placed fourth.

GRAND PRIZE The $500 grand prize for the wackiest label was awarded to Robert Brocone of Euclid, Ohio for a warning he found on a bottle of drain cleaner which says: "If you do not understand, or cannot read, all directions, cautions and warnings, do not use this product." Brocone also wins a copy of the book, "The Death of Common Sense," by Philip K. Howard, chairman of the legal reform group, Common Good.

And, for the first time, the winner of the top prize receives a special edition wacky warning label coffee mug produced by the Common Good coalition. A recent Newsweek magazine cover story reported on Common Good's campaign to focus national attention on the impact legal fear is having in our society.

OTHER WINNERS.
The $250 second place award went to Alexander Tabarrok of Fairfax, Virginia for a label on a snow sled which says: "Beware: sled may develop high speed under certain snow conditions."
Third place and $100 goes to Bob Skowronek of Northville, Michigan who purchased a 12-inch-high storage rack for compact disks which warns: "Do not use as a ladder."
Fourth place, as mentioned above, went to the fishing lure, sent in by Melissa Cerrito, Atlantic Mine, Michigan, and
Fifth place goes to a smoke detector which warns: "Do not use the Silence Feature in emergency situations. It will not extinguish a fire," sent in by Bill Masterson, Ft. Myers, Florida

"Wacky warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times," said Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president. "It used to be that if someone spilled coffee in their lap, they simply called themselves clumsy. Today, too many people are calling themselves an attorney. This "sue first, ask questions later" mentality has not only produced wacky warning labels, it has increased the cost of products and services families use daily. That's the real problem."

M-LAW is a non-profit organization working to increase public awareness of how the explosion in litigation is hurting America. M-LAW is dedicated to restoring common sense and personal responsibility to the courts.

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4) The New York Times Magazine: Civil Disobedience Against Affirmative Action [Idée : dénoncer le racisme de la discrimination positive en s'engageant à mentir sur son ethnie]
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/magazine/14CIVIL.html
December 14, 2003
Civil Disobedience Against Affirmative Action
By MARK EDMUNDSON

The idea of using ''civil disobedience'' to protest affirmative action began with a letter sent this year to Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of National Review, and quoted by Nordlinger in his Aug. 11 column. ''Jay,'' the letter began, ''what would happen to affirmative-action programs if a significant portion of college applicants intentionally misrepresented their races?'' The author of the letter speculated that even if only a few white students identified themselves as minorities (or vice versa) on their college applications, such ''civil disobedience'' might ''introduce just enough margin of error to bring out the pure intellectual chaos and moral repugnance of affirmative action.'' 

There followed a vision of a university dean standing before Fox News cameras, turning away a white student who lied on her application. Imagine: a liberal, standing in front of a classroom door, keeping out a student on the basis of her race -- shades of Southern governors in the 1950's blocking school entranceways! 

Nordlinger loved the idea. ''To what lengths would admissions officers go to verify the race or ethnicity of an applicant?'' he wrote. ''Would there be a medical unit at the ready, prepared to examine blood and to assess DNA?'' 

The upshot was a Web site, NoRace.org, and a plan for action. The site encourages students to take the following pledge: ''I, the undersigned, am a prospective college student and pledge to specify my race incorrectly on my college entrance applications as an act of civil disobedience in protest of the use of racial preferences in college admissions.'' 

Though you may disagree with Nordlinger and his followers over affirmative action, you have to admire their opportunistic wit. Confronted with this summer's Supreme Court opinions upholding the core principles of affirmative action, conservatives have resorted to a provocative sort of guerrilla theater to make their case. 

But does lying about your race on a college application really qualify as an act of civil disobedience? The followers of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi put their lives on the line to protest injustice; because of them, we associate the words ''civil disobedience'' with extreme courage against ruthless state power. Lying about your race on a college application, on the other hand, looks a little more like self-interested scheming. 

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The 48-year-old West Bend man who threatened to sue Charter Communications because of what he called his cable TV addiction says he’s not upset with the cable company for making him “addicted” to cable TV but rather, he’s angry because he says the cable company forced it upon him after he discontinued his service. “Freedom of choice is my No. 1 issue, and they didn’t give that to me,” Tim Dumouchel said. “It’s all about them depriving you of choice.” He said he does not plan to go through with the lawsuit that he had threatened earlier.

Dumouchel made local and national headlines this week when he blamed Charter Communications, headquartered in Fond du Lac, for his so-called addictions to cable TV as well as to cigarettes and alcohol. He also said Charter was responsible for making his wife gain weight and for his children to be “channel surfers,” according to a Fond du Lac police report.

Dumouchel (pronounced do-Michelle) smoked cigarettes and responded cryptically at times to reporters’ questions during a press conference in the basement of his home Thursday afternoon. “I have the choice not to smoke these (cigarettes), yet I have to go to the store and buy them. I have to make a conscious decision,” he said.

Reporters asked why he didn’t just turn off the TV, cut the cord on his TV or disconnect the cable box himself. He said he was powerless over the button on the remote control and asked reporters how many of them could keep the TV off for 30 days. He said he didn’t want to break any laws by tampering with the cable box himself.

He said many television shows include cigarette and alcohol use and he found that temptation too overwhelming. He said the impetus to cut the cable service came when he broke off a wooden railing on his basement stairs when trying to climb up the railing while drunk.

At the press conference, Dumouchel pointed out that the original news report by The Reporter was “99 percent correct” except for one detail. “I never said my kids were lazy,” he said. However, the Fond du Lac police report included that description. He said his wife is angry at him for his comment about her weight.

He called the cable company to cancel his expanded cable service in August of 1999, but the service kept coming into his home for more than four more years, he said. He also blames Charter for causing him to smoke and drink after several years of abstinence from both substances.

The police report was generated after Charter employees called police Dec. 23 to the Fond du Lac office, 165 Knight’s Way, after Dumouchel showed up there and allegedly intimidated employees. He also made “low-level threats,” according to the police report and Charter spokesman John Miller when he said that if a supervisor didn’t talk to him within five minutes, their next step would be “swimming in the ocean with the sharks.” 
Dumouchel says he meant the media when he used the word “sharks” 

Dumouchel said he decided to stop cable service four years ago in an effort to talk to his family. Dumouchel has three children, ages 16, 22 and 30. He said he watches television all the time when he’s not at work and that he gives it his full attention. After his cable service was finally disconnected in December, Dumouchel said he bought a $40 antenna so he and his wife could watch the Packers. 

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PARIS
I Begin this story about Paris beauty with a photograph, taken 41 years ago, of three little girls seated at a picnic table on a summer afternoon in Ohio. I am the girl on the right, a tomboy in overalls with messy blond hair and a newspaper spread (upside down) before me, a pencil in my hand. The girl in the middle is Peggy Burris — Margaret Burris, though she was a born Peggy — and if you look closely, her nails are painted red. The girl on the left is Janie Timmons, the shyest among us, her face hidden by a doll.

The photograph, taken by my father when we were 5, stunningly revealed our destinies. Janie would look after the interests of children in public day care centers. Peggy would acquire even more polish as an airline stewardess before settling into married life. And I would enter the ink-stained world of newspapers, where, against the more permanent of my ideals, I became a fashion writer.

Because all of us carry some baggage from our past, I seldom arrive in Paris, where work takes me four or five times a year, without some feeling of being an ugly duckling or, at any rate, a small-town person. No doubt it is for this reason — I can think of no other — that I stay in the same hotel, in the same room, and consider the area around the Place Vendôme my neighborhood. One of my neighbors is Joel Rosenthal, a former New Yorker who owns a jewelry shop called JAR in a small passage nearby, and one day he mentioned a Mr. Ho who performed a magical pedicure. It astonished me that my friend, whose tweeds and corduroys give him the appearance of a New England professor, would know of such a person, much less go to him. 

But then, Joel is a repository of information, his clients being worldly and well heeled and capable of discussing more than the price of rubies. Since he seemed up to the minute in the beauty department, I asked him if he also knew of a facialist named Joëlle Ciocco.

"Oh, yeah," he said quickly. "Everybody goes to her."

By now an article was forming in my mind along the lines of an old Confidential schlock feature: "Inside Paris: Beauty Secrets Revealed!" A telephone call to Fiona DaRin in the Paris office of Condé Nast confirmed that Ms. Ciocco and Jean Baptiste Ho were "definitely on the cult list." What is more, she suggested that I add the name of a colorist, Christophe Robin. "He does Deneuve's hair," she said.

Later I rang Joel's buzzer. "Oh, yeah," he said. "He's the guy in the Rue du Mont Thabor. Everybody goes to him."

I went first to Mr. Robin, whose tiny salon is located in the courtyard of a building. A small jungle of plants framed the door, and inside were two sinks with two women's heads in them, a couple of chairs and a vanity with a lamp in the form of a French poodle and many photos stuck in the edge of the mirror. The place had the warm atmosphere of a kitchen, and Mr. Robin himself was funny and unpretentious. He has had the salon for seven years; and he does indeed do Catherine Deneuve's color, and Vanessa Paradis's, but he didn't dwell on this. 

As he took me outside to look at my hair in natural light, I told him that I wanted the color to remain dark but that perhaps it was too dark, owing (cringe) to a box job at home. Mr. Robin, who speaks English, agreed that the color was hard but that it should stay dark. Then he took me inside and planted me at the vanity, where I buckled down to a copy of Hello! while he applied the color.

The place has an antifashion feel, and Mr. Robin says he is not interested in anything larger. "Maybe when I start to get bored," he said with a laugh. I have to say that going to him was the most rewarding of the three beauty experiences I had in Paris. He worked lighter shades of brown into my hair — but underneath, so the effect was natural. Mr. Robin, whose fees range from $312 to $500 (depending on the process), does only color, though he has people who will cut your hair, massage your feet or do a manicure.

In France, there is something called a medical pedicure, which Mr. Ho offers in an office on one of those racy streets off the Champs-Élysées. It is more thorough than a beauty pedicure and takes about an hour (no nail polish is used). Mr. Ho charges $185. As I boarded one of the biggest recliners I've ever seen, Mr. Ho took my feet gently in his hands and studied them. I asked him what he thought, expecting him to say that heavy instruments would be required. Instead he said, "I know that you don't wear too many pointy shoes." This was true.

As Mr. Ho clipped my toenails and cleaned under them, I was impressed by the lightness of his touch. By comparison, a salon pedicure is painful. And instead of removing dead skin with clippers, he used a miniature scalpel to scrape around the nails. "Clippers leave tiny holes that cause the skin to grow more hard," he said. He sanded the bottoms of my feet with a wooden paddle, putting some muscle into it, and then buffed the nails with a roll of chamois. He figured he had removed about four ounces of dead skin. I wiggled my immaculate toes. They felt about a pound lighter.

I was ready for my facial. Ms. Ciocco is an exuberant Frenchwoman who creates her own cleansers and says things like, "My job is to be the Sherlock Holmes of your skin!" She had come with high billing from people at Barneys, which sells her products, but I became dubious as she spread a creamy substance on my face, saying it was a blend of marshmallow and grapefruit. 

"Marshmallow?" I said.

"From the plant of a marshmallow," she reassured me.

"I didn't know marshmallows came from a plant," I murmured.

I've been to a number of facialists in my years in Paris. I went to one woman who used a vacuuming device to unclog my pores. It was powerful, too. But, at a cost of $560 for an initial two-hour visit with Ms. Ciocco (which, in my case, was interrupted by a receptionist saying that the chauffeur of the next client had phoned to see if she was running late), my natural skepticism was tested. Yes, my skin glowed afterward, but the small-town girl in me asked, "At what price?"

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WOMAN: What do you think of Howard Dean's plans to raise taxes on families by 1900 dollars a year?

MAN: What do I think? Well I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, Sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading--

WOMAN: Body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.

MAN: Got it?

BOB GARFIELD: Okay. It's funny, in a hateful sort of way, but as one of our listeners points out, like many political ads, it is factually suspect. According to Thomas Summerall of Norwich, Vermont, a quick series of web searches confirmed that Vermont has only 3 Sushi restaurants in the whole state; 23 tattoo parlors, compared to Iowa's 89, and incredibly, only 2 Starbucks. So if Howard Dean is an elitist, he's being one a long cultural way from the Upper East Side. By no means, though, do right-wingers have the monopoly on political nastiness and spin. So now comes a web site, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, providing due diligence on false and misleading claims, Republican and Democrat, left and right. It is called factcheck.org, and its director is former CNN political correspondent Brooks Jackson. He joins me now. Brooks, welcome to OTM.

BROOKS JACKSON: Thank you, Bob. Glad to be here.

BOB GARFIELD: Factcheck.org is a great idea and a wonderful service to journalists and the public, but sort of a misnomer, isn't it, because politicians often use nominal facts out of context to float all kinds of mis-impressions and lies. So you're not just checking facts, are you?

BROOKS JACKSON: Well, we're checking facts and the way they're used and the context. I think that's fair. And whether they've been twisted or distorted or mis-represented.

BOB GARFIELD: I understand you caught a Richard Gephardt ad in Iowa making use of some dodgy job-loss facts. Let's listen to that. [RICHARD GEPHARDT AD PLAYS]

RICHARD GEPHARDT: George Bush has lost more jobs than any president since Herbert Hoover. He's lost more jobs than the last 11 presidents. Bush's budget deficit is almost twice what it was under his father. And 41 million Americans have no health insurance. Now another George Bush, another recession. I believe...

BOB GARFIELD: Okay, so there has been a net loss in, in jobs, but this ad isn't quite right. How isn't it right?

BROOKS JACKSON: Well, for one thing the total job loss -Democrats love to say that we lost more than 3 million jobs. In fact, they're talking about private sector employment rather than total employment, and because government workers continue to get hired, the total job loss peaked at about 2.7 million, at the worst of it back in June. What Gephardt and others do by comparing George Bush to Herbert Hoover [LAUGHS] however, is really kind of laughable. If you look at other measures of the depth of the recession and the, the job slump, in fact it's been one of the milder ones on record since World War II. If you recall, unemployment hit 10.8 percent at the worst of the Reagan administration. I think it's just been revised downward to 6.2 percent at its worst in this most recent recession. I should say Dean also has a problem, one of his figures that he keeps using that's just not correct -- he says 60 percent of us got only 304 dollars from the tax cut. Well the fact is the median -- that is the one right in the middle is 470 dollars. So 50 percent of us got more than 470 dollars.

BOB GARFIELD: How about the so-called facts that come to citizens not in campaign mailings or in stump speeches but in the, the newspaper from reporters who presumably would have themselves checked out the accuracy of the claims? Is there any one statistic that you continue to hear during the race for the Democratic nomination, for example, that just drives you crazy, cause you know it's just plain wrong?

BROOKS JACKSON: Oh, boy. I've already cited two I think, the 3 million job loss figure which is not correct is one that keeps coming up. Dean's "60 percent of us got 304 dollars only in a tax cut" keeps coming up.

BOB GARFIELD: How does this stuff slip through if so clearly campaigns have a political ax to grind with every number that they cite?

BROOKS JACKSON: Well, you know, every since Teddy White wrote that wonderful book, The Making of the President, 1960, reporters have been, I think, tilting too far in the direction of reporting campaigns as horse races, reporting the inside skinny on what the campaigns are up to, how they're using polling, how they're raising money, who's in, who's out. I think the pendulum swung a generation or even two ago a little too far in the direction of reporting process. If factcheck.org makes a small effort toward nudging that pendulum back in the direction of covering substance, then I think we will have accomplished something worth accomplishing.

BOB GARFIELD: Well, Brooks, thank you. My only regret is that our Brooke is on vacation and can't be doing this interview 'cause the hellos and goodbyes between Brooke and Brooks would have been so much more interesting. [LAUGHTER] But nonetheless, many thanks for joining us.

BROOKS JACKSON: My pleasure, Bob. Thank you.

BOB GARFIELD: Brooks Jackson is the director of the Annenberg Political Fact Check -- his web site is www.factcheck.org

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8) The Economist: Make it convenient [Conséquences de la tendance actuelle vers une alimentation plus pratique, plus rapide, plus facile]
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=2261891
Make it convenient
Dec 11th 2003
That tends not to mean healthy

When Rome was at its peak, many of its citizens lived in insulae—apartment blocks without kitchens—and bought food ready-cooked from stalls. In those days, the cost of fuel made cooking for many more efficient than cooking for a few. These days it is the cost of labour that is driving people out to buy fast food: they do not have the time to cook because they are using their labour to earn money.

The proportion of women going out to work is probably the main force pushing the time-saving trend. Britain and America are around the top of both the convenience-food league and the working-woman league. Continental Europe lags behind in both, though that may be more because of seriousness about food than because women are leisured.

Convenience food takes labour out of the home and puts it in the food industry. That's fine by the food industry. Mark Price, marketing director of Waitrose, Britain's top-of-the-range supermarket, says that the company's biggest item in meals at its Canary Wharf (London) branch (hurried customers in financial services) is the ready-mixed Caesar salad in a box. It costs £1 ($1.70) less if you buy all the ingredients and mix them yourself; but people can't be bothered.

Convenience takes different forms in Britain and America. In America, where the service economy is better developed, people buy food more in restaurants and takeaways, and eat it in their cars, homes or offices. “America's favourite dining room”, says Technomic's Dennis Lombardi, “has a gas pedal and a steering wheel.” Supermarkets have tried to hit back, serving hot meals and cold take-outs to hungry commuters. Producers, too, are working at satisfying the demand for convenience. “Hand-held is really hot these days,” says Michael Silverstein, head of the Boston Consulting Group's retail practice. That means things like Hot Pockets, palm-sized wraps with fillings that allow impatient Americans to dispense even with plates and chairs. Last year Nestlé paid an eyebrow-raising $2.6 billion for Chef America, the company that makes them.

Ready meals from supermarkets are the main result of the drive to convenience in Britain. Ten years ago, the sector barely existed; now it is worth £1.5 billion and is growing at 6% a year. These days, Tesco launches 1,200 new convenience products a year. Variety boosts consumption.

Convenience is taking over supermarkets' fresh produce departments. Bagged salad hardly existed five years ago. Now Tesco sells £150m ($205m) worth a year. The basic lettuce has gone: these days it is washed and mixed with herbs, croutons and brightly-coloured leaves to jolly it up. “Lettuce”, says Stan Burns, Tesco's category manager for vegetables and salad, “was a slow-growing business. We've brought some excitement to it.”

Adding labour increases sales of boring products. Once upon a time, carrots were carrots. Now they are diced, chopped, shredded or peeled into nice little rounded sticks for children's snacks. Each process allows the supermarket to charge more.

Some companies think there is a market for fairly-convenient food. Leaping Salmon, a British company, sells bags with the ingredients and instructions for really quite complicated meals (banana leaves, coconut milk, ginger, halibut) for people who would like to do a bit of cooking but don't know how. The service is said to be popular with men who want to look as though they are trying.

Convenience food helps companies by creating growth; but what is its effect on people? Disastrous, according to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, an historian at Queen Mary, University of London. “For people who think cooking was the foundation of civilisation, the microwave...is the last enemy...The communion of eating together is easily broken by a device that liberates household denizens from waiting for mealtimes...The first great revolution in the history of food is in danger of being undone. The companionship of the camp fire, cooking pot and common table, which have helped to bond humans in collaborative living for at least 150,000 years, could be shattered.”

Meals have certainly suffered from the rise of convenience food. The only meals regularly taken together in Britain these days are at the weekend, among rich families struggling to retain something of the old symbol of togetherness. Indeed, the day's first meal has all but disappeared. In the 20th century the leisurely carnivorous British breakfast was undermined by the cornflake; in the 21st breakfast is vanishing altogether, a victim of the quick cup of coffee in Starbucks and the cereal bar.

Convenience food has also made people forget how to cook. One of the apparent paradoxes of modern food is that, while the amount of time spent cooking meals in Britain has fallen from 60 minutes a day in 1980 to 13 minutes a day in 2002, according to Taylor Nelson Sofres, a consultancy, the number of books and television programmes on cooking has multiplied. But perhaps this isn't a paradox. Maybe it is because people can't cook any more, so they need to be told how to do it. Or maybe it is because people buy books about hobbies—golf, yachting—not about chores. Cooking has ceased to be a chore and has become a hobby.

Although everybody lives in the kitchen, its facilities are increasingly for display rather than for use. Mr Silverstein's new book, “Trading Up”, looks at mid-range consumers' willingness to splash out. He says that industrial-style Viking cooktops, with nearly twice the heat output of other ranges, have helped to propel the “kitchen as theatre” trend in home goods. They cost from $1,000 to $9,000. Some 75% of them are never used.

Convenience also has an impact on the healthiness, or otherwise, of food. Of course, there is nothing intrinsically bad about ready-to-eat food. You don't get much healthier than an apple, and all supermarkets sell a better-for-you range of ready-meals. But there is a limit to the number of apples people want to eat; and these days it is easier for people to eat the kind of food that makes them fat.

The three Harvard economists in their paper “Why have Americans become more obese?” point out that, in the past, if people wanted to eat fatty hot food, they had to cook it. That took time and energy—a good chip needs frying twice, once to cook the potato and once to get it crispy—which discouraged consumption of that sort of food. Mass preparation of food took away that constraint. Nobody has to cut and double-cook their own fries these days. Who has the time?

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9) The Register: Flight Sim enquiry raises terror alert [Après les almanchs, le FBI déclare dangereux l'achat de jeux de simulation de vol]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34776.html
Flight Sim enquiry raises terror alert
By Andrew Orlowski in Las Vegas
Posted: 08/01/2004 at 22:39 GMT

A mother's enquiry about buying Microsoft Flight Simulator for her ten-year-old son prompted a night-time visit to her home from a state trooper.

Julie Olearcek, a USAF Reserve pilot made the enquiry at a Staples store in Massachusetts, home to an earlier bout of hysteria, during the Salem witch trials.

So alarmed was the Staples clerk at the prospect of the ten year old learning to fly, that he informed the police, the Greenfield Recorder reports. The authorities moved into action, leaving nothing to chance. A few days later, Olearcek was alarmed to discover a state trooper flashing a torch into to her home through a sliding glass door at 8:30 pm on a rainy night.

Olearcek is a regular Staples customer and schools her son at home. The Staples manager simply explained that staff were obeying advice. Shortly before Christmas, the FBI issued a terror alert to beware of drivers with maps, or reference books.

At one time it was rare to find US citizens, in the safest and most prosperous country in the world, jumping at their own shadows. Now we only note how high.

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