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Week 21, 2005
THE BEST SELLERS (recent popular articles):
1) CNN/Global Office: Being nasty at work earns you more [Etre méchant au boulot rapporte.]
2) CNN/Global Office: End of an era for an American icon [Les gratte-ciel n'ont plus la côte, du moins aux Etats Unis.]
3) Slate/Food: The Way the Cookie Crumbles [La madeleine de Proust a-t-elle vraiment pu exister ? On teste les recettes.]
4) New York Post: Size doesn't matter [Les New-yorkais doivent se satisfaire de petits logements. Personnellement, moi qui vis dans 31 mètres carrés, je ne trouve pas un studio de 45 mètres carrés particulièrement rikiki.... 10 square feet = 0,9 mètres carrés]
5) The Economist: Euro visions [Qu'ont en commun l'Union européenne et le concours Eurovision de la chanson ?]

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THE REGULARS: Summary
6) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: Happy Mother's Day [La fête des mères a déjà eu lieu aux USA.]
7) Car Talk/The Puzzler: The princess and the three boxes [Un casse-tête. Encore une princesse à marier...]
8) Slate/Dear Prudence: Crazy driving wife etc [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court. Cette semaine : Ma femme conduit comme une folle ; comment dire à ma mère que j'ai rencontré mon copain en ligne ; mon petit ami est le bébé de sa famille et ça se ressent.]
9) CNN/Global Office: End of an era for an American icon [Les gratte-ciel n'ont plus la côte, du moins aux Etats Unis.]

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1) CNN/Global Office: Being nasty at work earns you more [Etre méchant au boulot rapporte.]
http://www.cnn.com/globaloffice

Being nasty at work earns you more
Wednesday, April 27, 2005 Posted: 1329 GMT (2129 HKT)

(CNN) -- Being a nice person in the office may not necessarily be a wise career move. If you want to increase your salary, research shows that you may have to do it by being cold, disagreeable and antagonistic at work rather than by being nice.

Not only do nice people finish last, they also finish poorer. And the more devious and grumpier you are in the office the more you are likely to earn, according to research published in the Journal of Economic Psychology.

The study by Ellen Nyhus from Adger University College in Norway and Empar Pons from the University of Valencia in Spain analyzed the earnings and personality traits of 3,000 people. They found that those who were friendly earn less than those who were not. According to the report: "Agreeableness has a negative association with wage, which indicates that helping other people is punished in the labor market."

Previously, economists thought that bosses were more likely to reward agreeable staff, since these employees respond positively to praise from managers. But the survey now shows that agreeable workers are less likely to push for more money or a promotion, because they are so pleasant. While those with "Machiavellian intelligence" -- the knowlege and ability to manipulate others -- also have the skills to manipulate their salary in a positive way. "It takes a different mentality to crush who ever is in your way to get somewhere," one businessman told CNN on the streets of New York.

The study's authors say that there is a chance that agreeable people do not demand higher wages. They also found that "agreeableness is significantly associated with lower wages for women," the theory being that they are more agreeable than men.

But not everyone CNN spoke to on the New York streets believed the results of the study. "I am not going to be less friendly or less agreeable to make more money," said one person. "The jerks go out the door. I think the nicer you are the universe compensates for it," said another.

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2) CNN/Global Office: End of an era for an American icon [Les gratte-ciel n'ont plus la côte, du moins aux Etats Unis.]
http://www.cnn.com/globaloffice

End of an era for an American icon
Wednesday, May 4, 2005 Posted: 1233 GMT (2033 HKT)

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- The era of the record-breaking American skyscraper is over, according to the firm of architects behind Chicago's Sears Tower, once the world's tallest building. The 442-meter (1,450-foot) Sears Tower, designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, has been the tallest building in North America since its completion in 1974. But since 1998 it has been surpassed in height by both the 452m (1,483ft) Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the 509m (1,670ft) Taipei 101 building in Taiwan.

"I think that there was an era when tall was the equivalent of iconic and businesses wanted to demonstrate their prominence and power through the scale of their headquarters," said Skidmore partner Jeffrey McCarthy. "Today firms are more interested in branding their business by good design rather than by scale. There's less of an imperative to build tall, at least in the United States." The Freedom Tower, currently being built on the site of the devastated World Trade Center in Manhattan, will claim the title of tallest building in North America on its completion in 2008.

But McCarthy says the real battle to build the world's tallest building has moved eastwards. "We're seeing perhaps the same motives, the iconic motives or the prominence of tall buildings being more acceptable in the Middle East and China these days," he told CNN. Skidmore's latest blockbuster skyscraper is the Burj Dubai tower. While final measurements are still a trade secret, rumor has it that the new tower will scale new heights.

But Giles Worsley, architecture critic for the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, says tall buildings are ultimately just very expensive status symbols. "It's not about pure economics, it's about impressing," said Worsley. "It's about being noticed. You build a big tower, you get on postcards and you get on the news. It's more of a symbol than anything financially or economically essential."

That desire to be noticed can backfire on a company. Sears moved out of its tower back in 1993 because of financial problems and many companies are no longer willing to take a risk on high profile, high-cost monumental office buildings that might end up symbolizing a misguided invincibility.

Amid concerns over safety following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and a new emphasis on environmental sustainability, many companies in the U.S. are now choosing low-key campus-style headquarters, offering all the space of a skyscraper at a fraction of the cost. But McCarthy argues that re-locating to a campus can damage a company's ability to compete. "The campus is typically a very insular environment," he said. "It's introspective. Urban settings are much more outward looking. Even companies that are fairly secretive in their operations appreciate the importance of being in locations with their competitors."

Worsley believes a compromise, somewhere between the campus and the skyscraper, offers businesses the best of both worlds. "By the time the World Trade Center collapsed it was no longer a glamorous place to be; they were relatively cheap offices," he said. "Smart people had moved away into lower buildings. "If you want to build efficient offices, you build what are called 'groundscrapers' -- perhaps eight or 10 stories high -- they're the more practical, efficient way of actually using space."

But one look at the soaring skylines of Dubai or Shanghai proves that, in some parts of the world at least, prestige still comes before practicality.

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The missing madeleine

Marcel Proust's madeleine is the cliché cookie—a highbrow reference that's penetrated pop culture. (Take the Sopranos episode in which Tony's Proustian madeleine is a slice of cappicola.) The great French author put madeleines on the map, and probably in our mouths, too. We surely have him to thank for those little packages at every Starbucks checkout.

But Proust left out one important detail: the recipe. And no one ever asked him for it.

Many cookbooks claim that you can reproduce Marcel Proust's magical madeleine in your own kitchen. But do any of the recipes yield the genuine article? I decided to reverse-engineer Proust's madeleine, using hints the author gives in Remembrance of Things Past, in an effort to find out.

In the renowned passage, the fleeting taste of this cake/cookie calls to life the world of the narrator's childhood in Belle Epoque France. For the attentive reader, the clues to The Recipe for The Madeleine are in the text:

She (Marcel's mother) sent for one of those squat plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell … I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses …

And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray … when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane …. and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and garden alike, from my cup of tea.

What can we glean from this passage? Proust's madeleine was quite dry. It demanded not just a quick dunk, but immersion to "soften" it (according to the new translation by Lydia Davis, said to be the most accurate). And, you'll note, Marcel never bites the cookie. The memory surge is triggered by crumbs.

The Crumb Factor is the key to this culinary mystery. A close analysis of the text yields the following sequence: Marcel 1) breaks off and drops the morsel into the tea. 2) The madeleine piece then wholly or partially disintegrates during its immersion. 3) Marcel then fishes about with his spoon, yielding a spoonful of tea mixed with crumbs.

The question, then: What recipe would deliver this dry, extraordinary crumb-producer?

Modern food science gives clear guidelines. To make a cake less moist, you put in less moisture and less fat. That means less butter and fewer eggs. And less sugar, too. Sugar is "hygroscopic"—meaning it helps baked goods retain moisture—so you want to keep it to a minimum. Also high on the list of no-nos: resting the batter. Resting allows the flour to absorb the batter's liquid and results in a moister product.

Running through this list of Proustian baking "tips"—which reads more like a catalogue of baking "don'ts"—the great man's signature dish was beginning to sound less than appealing: a pathetic, parched product, not a buttery treat.

My criteria knocked many supposedly "authentic" recipes out of contention. In The Way To Cook, Julia Child touts hers as "presumably the true Madeleine from Commercy, the one Marcel Proust dipped in his tea." But she turns out to be an incorrigible batter rester. Not only that, she beats the flour into the egg and sugar mixture, a sure way to develop the flour's gluten and produce a denser, uncrumby madeleine.

Dining With Proust, a cookbook that re-creates dozens of dishes from Remembrance, is co-authored by Anne Borrel, founder of the Proust Museum in Illiers-Combray. But the book's recipe calls for resting the batter a full hour-and-a-half and, worst of all, includes honey, notorious for its hygroscopic properties.

I found two recipes that looked promising. In the Food Lover's Guide to Paris, French food expert Patricia Wells champions dry madeleines. "The best, freshest madeleine has a dry, almost dusty taste when eaten on its own," she tells us. Being soaked in tea is what brings it to life. The relatively low butter, sugar, and egg content in Wells' recipe gave me hope.

In The Making of a Cook, Madeleine Kamman traces her recipe's lineage back to the 18th century and maybe even to "Madeleine Paumier … the young girl who … presented the first known madeleines to King Louis XV of France." She is adamant that the flour be folded into the batter, not beaten, to avoid the dreaded gluten development. Neither a batter beater, nor a batter rester, she was my strongest candidate.

I pulled out my mother's old early-Julia Child-era imported madeleine molds and set to work.

My first batch of the Kamman madeleines came out of the oven smelling great but looking terrible. I picked up one of the misshapen blobs. Not much resemblance to Proust's "little scallop shell pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious fold." But was it a crumb-producer?

I broke off a piece, dropped it into a glass of tea, and waited a minute. I prodded the cookie with my spoon. Looking very closely I saw only two small bits at the bottom of the glass. I stirred again, and a couple more appeared. The crumb production was underwhelming.

A madeleine morsel, it turns out, is a hardy little customer. Protected by a lightly browned layer, it does not disintegrate. Close examination revealed that it doesn't truly "soften," but absorbs liquid like a sponge, retaining its structural integrity. The locus of crumb production is confined to the narrow, exposed lens-shaped surface at the break-off line.

Would another recipe yield more Proustian results? Patricia Wells' fared no better. (Except, perhaps, in terms of taste. Her madeleines, supposedly "dry, dusty" tea-soaker-uppers, were delicious on their own. Half the batch disappeared while the tea was brewing.) Wells' madeleines produced no more crumbs than Kamman's. Julia Child's, as I expected, were equally crumb-free.

Things were looking bad for M. Proust. The sickly author, who hardly left his cork-lined bedroom in Paris for a dozen years, from 1910 until his death in 1922, supposedly channeled an entire world in all its precise sensations, setting it down on paper for us to re-experience. But my mind was afflicted with a blasphemous thought: Could Proust's madeleine ever have existed? Could it be he … made it all up?

I had one theory in reserve. Maybe Proust's Madeleine was stale. Unthinkable? Not necessarily. Proust was not finicky about his sensory stimuli—the fictional Marcel is even propelled into a reverie at one point by the dank smell of a lavatory.

I left my remaining madeleines outside, uncovered, defying instructions to keep them "stored in a tightly closed tin." After three days I brewed a glass of tea. I broke off a piece of madeleine and plopped it in. The result: about the same as before. I stirred, took a spoonful. A few brown bits swam in the spoon. I tasted. And here came the shocker: I could not taste the crumbs. Madeleine crumbs, once detached from the mother morsel, are quite delicate. They almost dissolve. It turns out they are insensible to the tongue.

I called my wife into the kitchen (her initial comment: "Does Proust explain who cleaned up?") for an objective opinion. She has a fine palate, but couldn't taste the crumbs either.

Confounded, I decided to confer with leading Proust authorities. I discovered a major obstacle: the eminent professor William Carter, author of Marcel Proust: A Life, who had supervised a re-creation of the famous scene for a PBS documentary. The professor was skeptical. He was turned off by my notion that Marcel had "dissolved pieces of madeleine floating around in his teacup," calling it "not likely." And, to my surprise, he asserted that Marcel does dunk and bite the madeleine—which would mean there's no crumb production mystery to be explained. The professor insisted that the crumbs are simply created in the narrator's mouth after he bites off a morsel and shmooshes it around.

I objected that no biting, or shmooshing, is mentioned in the text. The professor insisted it is "implied." But, in my view, Proust was simply too obsessed with detail to let something as significant as biting, let alone shmooshing, go unnoted if that's what he had in mind.

Much to my relief, I found firm support from MacArthur "genius" grant-winner Lydia Davis, the translator of the widely praised new edition of Proust's Swann's Way, in which the famed passage appears. She finds no "implied" biting in the text, and calls mere dunking "out of the question." She concurs that the crumby madeleine material is already in the spoon as it approaches Marcel's mouth. The tie-breaker was Stanford professor Joshua Landy, a Proust scholar who declares himself firmly in my "crumbs in the spoon" camp.

I'd given Proust a more-than-fair shot. His failure to account for extraordinary crumb production was manifest. Case closed, then: Proust's madeleine did not, does not, and never could have existed. To put it bluntly: Proust didn't know from madeleines.

This may be less than surprising. As it turns out, Proust's original model may have been a piece of soggy toast. In an early version of the scene, the narrator is offered a piece of "dry toast" which he dips in his tea. The "bit of sopped toast" triggers the familiar surge of memory.

This fact is not advertised to tourists making the pilgrimage to Illiers-Combray, where madeleines are sold by the bushel, and one patisserie does good business claiming Proust's family as patrons.

But Proust must have understood the madeleine's power. Otherwise he would have just left us the soggy toast. A well-made madeleine (and, please, rest the batter) is that rare thing: perfection itself. The shape, so pleasing to the eye, the double surface texture (ridged on one side, smooth on the other)—and, yes, the buttery, lemony taste. Make a batch. Take a bite. An "exquisite pleasure" will invade your senses. And you will have your own madeleine memories.

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4) New York Post: Size doesn't matter [Les New-yorkais doivent se satisfaire de petits logements. Personnellement, moi qui vis dans 31 mètres carrés, je ne trouve pas un studio de 45 mètres carrés particulièrement rikiki.... 10 square feet = 0,9 mètres carrés]
http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/46240.htm

SIZE...DOESN'T MATTER

By MAUREEN CALLAHAN

HE lives without books, magazines or CDs. She sleeps on a used $20 mattress and can fit all of her clothes into a single suitcase. He has carved storage space into almost every piece of furniture he owns.

On the following pages, you'll meet four New Yorkers who've mastered the art of living in excruciatingly tiny apartments - all made beautiful, and livable, with a few space-saving tricks.

These homes were all finalists in the first "Smallest, Coolest Apartment" contest hosted by apartmenttherapy.com, a design site for and about New Yorkers. (About 2,500 city dwellers voted in the competition, which ended Friday.)

"Your space just needs to reflect your personality," says Metropolitan Home's Linda O'Keeffe, who evaluated the finalists for The Post. "All of these people had cookie-cutter apartments, but they didn't deal with them in a cookie-cutter way."

That's high praise, given that a studio apartment smaller than 500 square feet cost an average $308,000 last year - an amount that elsewhere in the country would buy "a 2,500-square-foot ranch on a quarter of an acre," says Jonathan Miller, a top Manhattan real estate appraiser.

But those who live happily in coffin-sized dwellings say that even if you rent (which all of our finalists do), money spent on making a small space feel bigger is a smart investment.

"I need to have a great place to live in," says finalist Robert Nassar, who spent about $18,000 renovating his 300-square-foot space - even though friends warned him that since he didn't own, he'd never see the return on his investment.

"But my return," says Nassar, "was my piece of mind."

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Size: 185 square feet
Hillary (last name withheld), 25
Freelance graphic designer
Harlem

Biggest challenge: "My budget."

Solution:

Think of limited space and funds "as an exercise in living simply," says Hillary, who pays less than $800 a month to rent this studio. She got rid of all her CD cases ("they took up too much room"), tucked the discs into the CD jackets and tacked them on the wall to create a piece of functional art.

What she spent: Mattress, $20 (used); chair, $20, both found on craigslist. She spent $20 on a new rice cooker and another $40 on a new mattress cover for a total of $100.

Favorite resources: Craigslist and freecycle.com - "everything on it is free!"

Golden rule: Again, it all comes down to lack of clutter. "Most of my stuff is in my dad's garage, but I'll probably sell it now. It makes me feel good that I don't need a lot of stuff."

O'Keeffe says: "The notion of turning everyday objects into art" - like Hillary did with her CD collection - "is a brilliant solution." That said, "she could have hanging storage under her loft bed."

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Apt: 300 square feet
Robert Nassar, 44
Interior and product designer
West Village

Biggest challenge: "A really intrusive neighbor who tried to get me evicted" during renovations on the apartment he rents for less than $1,500 a month.

Solution: "I'd leave boxes of chocolate outside his door when I knew there would be banging." It didn't work, but ultimately, the cranky neighbor "was powerless. My landlord's used to people complaining all the time."

What he spent: Architectural expenses, $5,000. (Nassar hired contractors to seal up one doorway and create another and expand the kitchen from 3 feet to 8 feet.) The rug's from ABC Warehouse; bookcases and entire kitchen from IKEA.

Favorite resources: Canal Street; IKEA.

Golden rule: No - surprise! - clutter. "It's the most crucial thing in a small space - you take off your shoes and the place is a mess. Keep everything out of sight. My vacuum is under my bed; my broom is in the large cabinet next to my bookshelf; my couch has storage built in behind it, underneath it - even under the cushions."

Best advice: Never try to rip off one look entirely. "Look in magazines to get ideas, but don't emulate them exactly."

O'Keeffe says: "He has a simple color palette, good storage and the strongest sense of architecture."

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Size: 450 square feet
Brandon Specketer, 24
Architect

Upper West Side

Biggest challenge: Limited funds and a roommate.

Solution: Specketer (who pays more in rent, since he sleeps in the loft) told his roommate he was going to redesign the space on his own, with no input allowed. "My roommate was like, 'You're the architect; do what you want.' He loves it. Our friends love it - everyone always comes over here for pre-party drinks."

What he spent: Paint and supplies, $30; wardrobe, $125 from IKEA; three black tables (to form makeshift coffee table), $15 each from Target; metal desk from VFW in Kansas City, $100. Two end tables found on the street, $0.

Favorite resources: Craigslist and eBay: "In New York, the market is so overpicked that people jack up the prices. But on eBay you can find vintage Eames chairs in the Midwest for much cheaper."

Golden rule: No clutter - especially when you share a tiny space like this with a roommate, as Brandon does. "If you bring one thing in, throw one thing out. Burn your CDs and sell them. With magazines, rip out the pages you want, put them in a binder and throw them out. Clothes - donate what you're not wearing."

Best advice: Even if you know nothing about design, don't be intimidated: "It's like being insecure about how you look. Don't try to fit an image to impress people. If you wear what you want, you'll look good. The same philosophy extends to apartments."

O'Keeffe says: "I loved the marrying of function and design. He has a very good sense of proportion, and I liked the reduced color palette."

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Size: 485 square feet
Patrick Hamilton, 41
Creative director
Near Lincoln Center

Biggest challenge: Clutter. "I lived in this apartment with an uncomfortable level of clutter 'till I figured out what to do with it." Hamilton suggests other pack rats do the same - wait until you know exactly what kind of storage you need. (Otherwise, containers will just replace your clutter, rather than conceal it.)

Solution: Toss old magazines, CDs, etc., and make the most of what you have: "I put drawers, bins and double-backed hanging rods in the closet - that gave me two-thirds more space."

Key pieces everyone should have: "A console that doesn't scream 'living room' or 'bedroom.' Good lighting, even if it's a colored light bulb. A table that can work for dining and as a desk."

Favorite resources: Crate & Barrel, Design Within Reach and IKEA: "If I were building a kitchen from scratch, I'd go there."

Golden rule: Mix it up. "People fall into the trap of getting everything from one place."

Budgeting tip: "Know what you need the most, buy what you love the most" and sacrifice accordingly. "I don't go to restaurants that much, and I don't travel much, either. I'd rather put my money into my apartment."

O'Keeffe says: "He has a very sophisticated sense of color, but he still needs to remove some stuff and watch the open storage."

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5) The Economist: Euro visions [Qu'ont en commun l'Union européenne et le concours Eurovision de la chanson ?]
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3960886
Charlemagne: Euro visions
May 12th 2005

Where the Eurovision song contest goes, Europe tends to follow

WHICH cultural achievement best captures the spirit of Europe: the “Mona Lisa”, the “Moonlight sonata”, “Hamlet”—or “Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley”? No contest. In modern Europe it has to be the Swedish ditty that won the Eurovision song contest in 1984, whose cheery inanity captures the spirit of the annual pan-European event. Every year millions of Europeans tune in to Eurovision. This year's contest will be held in Kiev, Ukraine's capital, on May 21st. For those seeking evidence that Europe is more than a geographical expression, Eurovision is a rare example of a cultural event that engages the interests of people across the continent. T.R. Reid, a former London correspondent for the Washington Post, argues that the contest “is playing an historic role. Eurovision has become a celebration of Europeanness that strengthens the growing sense among 500m people that they all belong to a single place on the world map.”

So what does the contest tell us about Europeanness? First, that Europeans, for all their sophisticated self-image, cannot resist costumes that involve sequins, lamé and plunging necklines. Second, that nursery babble is the preferred pan-European language: the 1984 Swedish entry was in the fine tradition of an earlier British winner, “Boom-Bang-a-Bang”, and a Dutch one, “Ding Dinge Dong”. But nonsense is now giving way to English, which dismays those who want Europe to remain a bastion of linguistic diversity. Georgios Karatzaferis, a Greek member of the European Parliament, has asked the European Commission to take action against the “bastardisation” of the contest, and the triumph of “bad music and American words”, by forcing contestants to sing in their national languages. This was the rule between 1977 and 1999; since then, all contestants have been free to choose any language. This year's favourite is Helena Paparizou, a Greek compatriot of Mr Karatzaferis, who will be singing “My number one” in English.

Americans may appreciate the fact that Eurovision is often in their language, but find other features baffling, if not repulsive. Cultural conservatives would be struck by evidence of European moral degeneracy. In 1998 Eurovision was won by Dana International, an Israeli transsexual; in 2003, the most talked-about act featured a couple of Russian teenage girls whose performance involved fondling each other suggestively to a techno-beat. Janet Jackson's errant nipple seems tame by comparison.

But the biggest single lesson of Eurovision is that Europe's centre of gravity is moving east. The contest is being held in Ukraine this year because a Ukrainian won in 2004. Over the previous three years, the winners were Turkey, Latvia and Estonia.

The parallels with the European Union are obvious. The Eurovision song contest was the brainchild of Marcel Baison, a French music producer, who was an admirer of Jean Monnet. It got going in 1956 with a mere seven contestants; the Monnet-inspired European Economic Community was formed a year later with six countries. In both cases, membership was initially restricted to western Europe. Over time Eurovision and the European Union have both grown in popularity and membership. The EU now has 25 members; this year Eurovision has 39 contestants. Eurovision has expanded faster because it is easier to compose a mindless ditty and don a lamé costume than to pass the 80,000 pages of law needed to join the EU. But the new Eurovision entrants hope—and many old Europeans fear—that where Eurovision goes, the EU will one day follow.

New entrants to Eurovision, rather like new entrants to the EU, also embrace the contest with a naive enthusiasm. By contrast, as the song contest and the EU have both grown in size, the older members have become increasingly jaded. When Estonia won the song contest in 2001, the country's politicians, who were enmeshed in negotiating the finishing touches to their EU entry terms, seized upon the victory's symbolic significance. As the Estonian prime minister expressed it at the time, “we are no longer knocking at Europe's door. We are walking through it singing.” The Ukrainians, who are eager to follow Estonia into the EU, are sure to use their staging of Eurovision next weekend to underline their membership of a wider European family. In honour of the occasion, they have even dropped all visa requirements for EU nationals.

The Eurovision sceptics

While the new participants enthuse, older members of the family are getting distinctly cynical about the whole Eurovision thing. British television commentary is doused in irony and often draws attention to the way in which neighbours tend to vote for one another: the Greeks and Cypriots can always be relied upon to give each other high scores, and there is plenty of Baltic and Nordic solidarity. This goes to confirm the ingrained British prejudice that the odds in Europe will always be unfairly stacked against them. Indeed in Britain, the whole event is now regarded as a high-camp joke. A British contestant who scores the fabled nul points is likely to get far more attention than one who achieves respectable mediocrity.

Other western European countries also take Eurovision less seriously. The Irish, serial winners in the 1990s, now feign indifference. Denis Staunton of the Irish Times wrote in 2002 that trying to win the contest “seemed to jar with our new, nonchalant, national self-image.” The Italians, who gave Eurovision one of its few memorable songs in 1958 (later released as “Volare”), no longer bother to enter. As for the French, who won three of the first seven Eurovisions, they have not had a winner since 1977. The French referendum on the EU constitution takes place eight days after this year's contest. At a time when France agonises over its declining influence in the new, enlarged EU, it might be politic to let it win the new, enlarged Eurovision. And certainly to avoid a winner like “Waterloo”, Eurovision's all-time favourite, with which ABBA took the prize for Sweden in 1974.

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6) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: Happy Mother's Day [La fête des mères a déjà eu lieu aux USA.]
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p737.htm

Happy Mother's Day!

Once a year, moms everywhere get a chance to kick back, relax and think about themselves for a change - but this hasn't always been the case. So put the "yo mamma" jokes on hold and get the 411 on yo mamma's big day.

The Ancient History of Mother's Day
The earliest Mother's Day celebration can be traced back to the ancient Greeks who honored Rhea, the Mother of the Gods during the spring. Years later, during the 1600s, England had a day called Mothering Sunday, honoring moms in England. At that time, lots of England's poor were servants for the wealthy. Most of these jobs were far away from their homes so servants lived in their employer's houses. On Mothering Sunday servants had the day off and usually returned home to spend the day with their mom. Most of the time they would bring a mothering cake with them.

American Moms Get in on the Act
In the US, Mother's Day was first championed by Julia Ward Howe in 1872. Every year she would have Mother's Day meetings in Boston, Massachusetts. Her meetings were about peace and remembering all the sons and daughters lost at war. In 1907, a lady named Anna Jarvis from Philadelphia started a campaign for a national Mother's Day. She pushed her church to celebrate the holiday on the anniversary of her mother's death, the second Sunday in May. By 1911, the holiday was celebrated in almost every state. In 1914, the president made Mother's Day a national holiday on the second Sunday of May.

Celebrating Mother's Day
Let your mom know how much you love her this Mother's Day. Give her a card, do extra chores, give her flowers, get her something nice like a framed picture of the two of you, or even make her something nice. Don't forget to send your mom a Mother's Day greeting and spoil her on Mother's Day!

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8) Slate/Dear Prudence: Crazy driving wife etc [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court. Cette semaine : Ma femme conduit comme une folle ; comment dire à ma mère que j'ai rencontré mon copain en ligne ; mon petit ami est le bébé de sa famille et ça se ressent.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2118581/

Dear Prudence,
My wife is a bad driver. She is a really good, sweet person, but behind the wheel she's a menace. She speeds, weaves, tailgates, brakes late, and rages at other drivers. We've had some pretty strong arguments, but she's never been as mad at me as I guarantee she will be at half a dozen motorists on her commute home this evening. Over the past six years I've managed the body-shop bills, handled the insurance and the speeding tickets, endured frightening rides from the passenger seat, and pleaded with her to change. But now there's a new wrinkle—a child. With the imminent birth of our first child, I sincerely want to ban my wife from driving our innocent newborn—anywhere, ever. In my opinion, letting her chauffeur our child amounts to reckless endangerment. Of course, she thinks I'm being unreasonable, crazy even. What can I do? I don't want to get divorced.

—Married to Hell on Wheels

Dear Mar,
You really must put your foot down. This girl sounds like a rotten driver with a temper to match. Tell her she has two choices. She can take an anger management class, preferably one geared to drivers, or use taxis and buses. She will surely agree that the safety of your child is paramount. If she gives you static and is in denial about her vehicular skills, see some kind of neutral mediator. The body-shop bills, the insurance increases, and speeding tickets should be quite convincing to any outsider.

—Prudie, speedily

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Dear Prudence,
About four years ago, when I was a college undergraduate, I met a guy online through a non-matchmaking Web site and we became chat buddies, nothing more. He had a girlfriend and lived across the country, and I was having fun playing the field. Over time, our conversations become more in-depth. About two years ago, we finally got up the nerve to call each other. Three months after that (things kept progressing and we really liked each other), he flew out to see me for the first time. It was better than I could have imagined and has only gotten better since. We are still a long-distance couple but see each other about once a month, and he is planning to move in with me this summer for good. I have met his family, he has met mine, and we all love each other. There's only one problem: My mom doesn't know how we met. I know that I shouldn't be ashamed of meeting the man of my dreams on the Internet, but my mom associates it with bad people (she is not technologically savvy). Everyone except my immediate family knows the truth and thinks it's a pretty neat story, so I guess my question is: Do I tell her?

—Don't Want To Get on Mom's Bad Side

Dear Don't,
As long as everybody loves everybody, the how-we-met issue should not alter anyone's feelings. You were not, after all, on a site where the correspondents were inmates. If you really think your mother would freak, it would be perfectly honest to say you met "in a discussion group." Or you could even tell her that you met the beloved "chatting." If she is not cyber-savvy, she will not associate the word with "bad people." Prudie wishes you all the best.

—Prudie, electronically

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Dear Prudie,
I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost three years, and things have been going great. We understand each other, we rarely have conflicts (and when we do, it never results in yelling at each other, just a discussion), our personalities and interests are very similar, and neither one of us can imagine our lives without the other. However, I have been having a problem throughout this relationship: My boyfriend is the youngest of five children. (He was a "whoops" baby.) One of his sisters is old enough to be his mom. Because of this, the rest of his family babies him nonstop. While he's just as intellectual as I am, sometimes his behavior makes me feel like I'm not dating an adult. He stays home all day, every day, without any real plans of working or schooling, won't learn to drive because he's sure he'll get into an accident, and most of the time is so out of the loop on world events that trying to talk to him about anything outside of our interests is impossible. Anytime we've had a serious spat, it's been about this issue. It wouldn't bother me so much if he looked at it in an "I will, I just need to take it slowly" way, but instead he just always says, "I can't." I love him to death, but I worry about our future together. When I was younger, I sometimes thought about being a stay-at-home wife. Now I worry that I'd be the sole breadwinner, and I'd be stuck raising him. I don't want to leave the relationship, but I'd like advice on how to get him jump-started on facing the real world. I'd like to be with a man who will, well, be a man.

—Dating a Hermit

Dear Date,
If Prudie has understood you, the man in your life has been babied by his family to the point where he neither works nor goes to school, is afraid that if he drives he'll get into a wreck, and whose governing principle is, "I can't." It is lovely that you rarely have conflicts, but you must decide whether or not you want to stay with this case of arrested development and take care of him for the rest of your life. As no one knows better than you, his family has done him no favors.

—Prudie, maturely

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9) CNN/Global Office: End of an era for an American icon [Les gratte-ciel n'ont plus la côte, du moins aux Etats Unis.]
http://www.cnn.com/globaloffice

Web surfing 'as addictive as coffee'
Thursday, May 19, 2005 Posted: 1626 GMT (0026 HKT)

(CNN) -- Surfing the Web at work is an increasingly common habit that could be even more addictive than coffee, according to new research into Internet usage in the office. According to the 2005 Web@Work survey, 93 percent of all employees in the U.S. spend at least some of their time at work accessing the Web, up from 86 percent a year ago, and many of them are logging on for personal reasons. Among those, 52 percent said they would rather give up their morning caffeine hit than lose their Internet connection.

The average time spent accessing the Internet at work was 12.6 hours per week. But while employees estimated that 3.4 hours of that time was due to non-work related surfing, IT managers put that figure at closer to six hours. "As the line between professional and personal usage of the Internet becomes more of a gray area, many employees have started to rely on it to complete their job duties as well as perform personal tasks during the work day," said Geoff Haggart of Internet firm Websense, which conducted the survey.

The most popular Web sites accessed were news sites (81 percent), personal email (61 percent), online banking (58 percent), travel (56 percent) and shopping (52 percent). More men than women -- 62 percent compared with 54 percent -- admitted visiting non-work related Web sites at the office.

Men were 2.3 times more likely to visit sports sites and more than three times as likely to visit investment and stock purchasing sites. Almost a quarter of men also admitted visiting a porn site at work, although only 17 percent said they had done so deliberately.

As well as surfing the Internet, 18 percent of workers said they listened to or watched streaming media and 16 percent said they used instant messaging, although two-thirds of companies said IM usage wasn't sanctioned.

But while Internet use may be on the rise, it appears that companies have got wise to employees using their office hours to play computer games. Just six percent of workers owned up to playing games, down from 14 percent a year ago.

Haggart said employees needed to monitor their personal Internet use closely to ensure the habit doesn't interfere with their work. "With the sheer quantity and variety of Web sites and applications readily available, many employees are either not admitting to, or most likely not aware of, how much time they are really spending on personal surfing," he said. "The solution lies in balancing employees' needs for personal use of the Web at work without draining overall productivity, morale of the company's bottom line."

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