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Week 50, 2006

6) AUDIO/Marketplace: What holiday bonus? [La prime de Noël disparaît aux USA. VOUS POUVEZ ECOUTER CE REPORTAGE EN LIGNE.]

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A ) AP: Is a burrito a sandwich? [Un juge américain est saisi de la question : un burrito est-ce un sandwich ?]
http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO33649/

Massachusetts judge settles food fight by ruling burrito is not a sandwich

WORCESTER, Mass. -- Is a burrito a sandwich?

The Panera Bread Co. bakery-and-cafe chain says yes. But a judge said no, ruling against Panera in its bid to prevent a Mexican restaurant from moving into the same shopping mall.

Panera has a clause in its lease that prevents the White City Shopping Center in Shrewsbury from renting to another sandwich shop. Panera tried to invoke that clause to stop the opening of an Qdoba Mexican Grill.

But Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke cited Webster's Dictionary as well as testimony from a chef and a former high-ranking federal agriculture official in ruling that Qdoba's burritos and other offerings are not sandwiches.

The difference, the judge ruled, comes down to two slices of bread versus one tortilla.

"A sandwich is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans," Locke wrote in a decision released last week.

In court papers, Panera, a St. Louis-based chain of more than 900 cafes, argued for a broad definition of a sandwich, saying that a flour tortilla is bread and that a food product with bread and a filling is a sandwich.

Qdoba, owned by San Diego-based Jack in the Box Inc., called food experts to testify on its behalf.

Among them was Cambridge chef Chris Schlesinger, who said in an affidavit: "I know of no chef or culinary historian who would call a burrito a sandwich. Indeed, the notion would be absurd to any credible chef or culinary historian."

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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B ) The Economist: The National Spelling Bee [Un sport intellectuel très américain, les concours d'orthographe.]
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_SDQTTNG 

The National Spelling Bee 
Struggling towards Ursprache 

Jun 8th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC 
From The Economist print edition 
A peculiarly North American entertainment 

IN BASEBALL, you get three strikes. But at a spelling bee, one misplaced letter means you are O-U-T. That makes for a gripping contest, which is why two movies—“Spellbound” and “Akeelah and the Bee”—have been made about this all-American institution. And last week, for the first time in its 81-year history, the final rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee were broadcast live on prime-time network television. 
Reuters Just a hint, please God 

The struggle began with 10m spellers, all under the age of 16. Regional bees, mostly sponsored by local newspapers, whittled the number down to 275. This battle-hardened group came to a posh hotel in Washington, DC, for the final. By the time ABC started broadcasting, only 13 Uber-spellers remained. The pressure was excruciating, and not just for the parents. 

At a press conference before the broadcast, the children sat on the stage and discussed nerves, training regimens and the shock of seeing the favourite ejected in round seven. Samir Patel, a 12-year-old home-schooler from Texas (under “school”, his biography lists the “Patel Achievement Academy”), came second last year. But this year he stumbled on “eremacausis”. As probably none of the adults in the audience knew, this means: “gradual oxidation from exposure to air and moisture, as in the decay of old trees or of dead animals.” Any word in Webster's “Third New International Dictionary” may come up, which explains why, as the contest goes on, the testing terms tend to get more foreign. 

With Samir eliminated, the new favourite was Rajiv Tarigopula, a son of two doctors who came fourth last year. (Asian-Americans tend to do particularly well in the Bee; in 2005, they took the top four places.) Was Rajiv happy to see his rival eliminated, asked a callous journalist? “No,” said Rajiv, “it's a competition against the words, not the people.” This noble sentiment won him a round of applause. 

Striding up to the microphone and coolly rattling off words that would baffle a polymath, Rajiv looked like a winner. But he tripped on Heiligenschein and came fourth again. The final duel was between two girls. Finola Mei Hwa Hackett, a Canadian, was perhaps lucky to be given so many French words, but her nerve failed her on Weltschmerz, which she began with a “v”. 

Thirteen-year-old Kerry Close of New Jersey then had to spell kundalini and Ursprache to win. When the pronouncer pronounced the last word, the look on Kerry's face told 8.5m viewers that this was one she had revised. She nailed it. The crowd, especially her mother, were ecstatic. 

It was a great show. Which makes one wonder, as with so many North American sports: why do only North Americans play it?

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4 ) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: NASA announces plan for moon base [La NASA veut créer une base lunaire.]
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=8090

Lunar Outpost: NASA announces plans for moon base
By Jeffrey Rambo
December 5, 2006

On Monday, NASA announced big plans to the world. The space agency is planning to return people to the moon—and not just for a quick visit. NASA wants to set up camp.

“We’re going for a base on the moon,” said Scott Horowitz, NASA’s associate administrator for exploration. “It’s a very, very big decision.”

NASA's goal is to have astronauts return to the moon by around 2020. Four-person crews will start by making short trips to establish the moon base. Each crew will stay for only one week at a time.

Once the outpost begins to take shape, astronauts will stay for up to 180 days. The target date for humans staying permanently on the moon base is 2024. NASA officials said that astronauts will be able to explore the surface of the moon in a lunar vehicle, traveling far from the outpost.

The moon base will probably be built at one of the moon’s poles. There is almost always sunlight in these areas—perfect for solar power. NASA is considering the south pole of the moon for its minerals and other useful materials.

"Conditions at the south pole appear to be more moderate and safer," said NASA deputy administrator Shana Dale.

Return to the Moon

In 2004, President George W. Bush announced a new plan for space exploration—to return humans to the moon and, later, send them to Mars.

Bush's plan called for retiring the space-shuttle fleet and bringing U.S. involvement with the International Space Station to a close. Ending these projects will help finance the moon base. Once the base is established, it will be used to prepare for a piloted voyage to Mars.

NASA plans on asking other countries’ space agencies to participate. The new space project will return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972.

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6) AUDIO/Marketplace: What holiday bonus? [La prime de Noël disparaît aux USA. VOUS POUVEZ ECOUTER CE REPORTAGE EN LIGNE.]
http://marketplacemoney.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/12/08/holiday_bonuses/

What holiday bonus?

Fewer workers are collecting holiday cash bonuses these days. Some folks will be treated to small token gifts -- so is that better than nothing? Hillary Wicai reports.

TEXT OF STORY

KAI RYSSDAL: It's one holiday story you're sure to hear every year: Bonuses on Wall Street, thousands of dollars of extra pay, millions, sometimes. Maybe we take note of the extra som'in som'in under the tree because for many of us holiday bonuses are a thing of the past. Marketplace's Hillary Wicai reports.

HILLARY WICAI: If you're looking forward to a holiday bonus this year, don't do what Clark Griswold did in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

[CLARK GRISWOLD: "Take a look at this. I just hope my Christmas bonus check will cover it."

RESPONSE: "Oh my God, you're putting in a pool." ]

In fact, he's already made a down payment on the swimming pool. But, he doesn't get the bonus. Instead he's enrolled in a Jelly of the Month club. Not good for the family gathering.

[ ELLEN GRISWOLD: "Clark I think it's best if everyone just goes home before things get worse."

CLARK GRISWOLD: "Worse?! How could they get any worse? Take a look around you Ellen, we're at the threshold of hell." ]

Today, we may not be at that threshold but an extra couple weeks of pay just for the deck-the-halls of it has gone the way of the three-martini lunch. Workers lunching, sans martinis, at a Washington, DC food court, reminisce:

WORKER: "In the '80s I received four months salary, gross. It was fantastic!"

Ahh the good old days. Instead recent surveys indicate that fewer than half of us will be treated to a bit of cash, a gift card, even bizarre and slightly unappreciated treats.

WORKER 2: "I got a gingerbread house. We took the thing out in the back of the company and stomped on it. We were so insulted."

But here's the question: Is a gingerbread house better than what this woman's expecting this year:

WORKER 3: "Nothing. You mean from my boss?? Nothing."

If you do get something these days, it tends to be tied to performance and may not even come at the holidays. Brian Drum runs his own executive search firm.

BRIAN DRUM: "Whether it be how well the company's doing, how well the department's doing, how well the individual does and of course there's still the management discretion, but the bonus today is one that is paid based on some performance-related metrics."

That said, Wall Street is handing out record bonuses this season. It's been a huge year for mergers and acquisitions. So the average managing director at a top Wall Street bank is expected to take home a bonus of $1.7 million -- up from $1.2 million last year. That'll stuff your stocking.

Josh Joseph is a research director at business publisher BNA. He surveys the rest of us, with stockings that are lucky to hold a couple hundred bucks. It's not much, but can generate a fair amount of good will.

JOSH JOSEPH: "Even though we're not going to give you enough to buy a pool, employers don't just do this kind of thing for no reason. $100 pr $200 makes a difference to people and it leaves people in the right frame of mind about their employer."

And that's exactly why business consultant Jennifer Berman encourages her clients to do something for their workers. Otherwise it could cost them more in the long run.

JENNIFER BERMAN: "I think companies have become increasingly focused on bottom-line results, stock price. With good reason, however you've got to recognize that without your people, most of those efforts will come up short."

On the bright side, a growing number of small firms plan to give the gift of extra time off. Alice Bredin is a small business advisor for American Express.

ALICE BREDIN: "I mean everybody wants and would love an extra day here, an extra week there, four days there, because you can't buy time and as much as we all love extra cash too, I think that there's a trend now toward people just really value time.."

So start dropping hints to Santa Boss now: The gift of time is priceless. Who needs a million dollars or a new pool anyway?

In Washington, I'm Hillary Wicai for Marketplace Money.

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7) The Guardian: The news through French eyes [Lancement de télé Chirac.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1965061,00.html

The news through French eyes: Chirac TV takes on 'Anglo-Saxon imperialism'

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Wednesday December 6, 2006
The Guardian

In a slick, glass television studio in an office block on the southern outskirts of Paris, a new front in the war on "Anglo-Saxon" cultural imperialism will open up tonight. President Jacques Chirac's decade-old dream of a "CNN à la Française" to rival BBC World and US 24-hours news channels is finally to launch after years of wrangling and in-fighting, promising a revolution in world news.

France 24 seeks to report international news "through French eyes". Not only will it offer a French perspective on world events from the Middle East to Madagascar, it also aims to reflect a certain French "art de vivre", or way of life. It will explain the news with a perennial favourite of French TV: the argumentative debate show where philosophers in corduroy battle on current affairs. Dry runs have included topics from Rwanda to the plummeting fortunes of the French rugby team or the changing tastes for Beaujolais nouveau.

At least 20% of the programming will focus on culture and lifestyle, embracing everything from world museums to cuisine, fashion and French chocolate. It will broadcast simultaneously on two channels, in English and French. But broadcasting in English - which when used by the French leader of the European employers' group Unice in March this year prompted Mr Chirac to storm out of an EU meeting - will not dilute the French ethos. Station executives hope the English debate shows will be even more heated than the French. Broadcasts in Arabic and Spanish will follow at later dates.

The idea of a French 24-hour news channel was first dreamed up when Mr Chirac was prime minister in the late 1980s and became one of his election pledges for the presidency in 2002. The following year, when Mr Chirac tried to slow the US drive to war in Iraq and some media in the US and Britain mocked his efforts, the need for a news channel with a French voice gained currency. Mr Chirac now wants to launch it as part of the president's legacy of projects that continue France's struggle against the global dominance of the US. Earlier this year he unveiled plans for a Franco-German search engine to compete with Google and Yahoo, called Quaero, Latin for "I search". It was quickly dubbed "Ask Chirac".

But although the ageing president will launch France 24 at glittering gala in Paris's Tuileries Gardens, the station's chief executive, Alain de Pouzilhac, is determined not to let it become "Chirac TV". "We have public money but we are an independent channel," he told the Guardian. Nor will it be a vehicle for the centre-right presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused of being too close to TV stations. "I know Nicolas very well. I don't believe we will have a problem with that. He hasn't called me," Mr Pouzilhac added.

The channel is aiming at a similar number of viewers to al-Jazeera's English service, about 75 million households in more than 90 countries, describing itself as a "third way" between the Qatar-based station and CNN.

But its birth has not been smooth. It is an unprecedented partnership between France Télévisions, the country's public broadcaster, and TF1, one of Europe's largest private TV channels, two groups which are normally rivals. Union protests and management disagreements have abounded - even the channel's name, pronounced France vingt-quatre, was hotly contested. Some French politicians have voiced fears that the station couldn't generate the funds to compete internationally. François Rochebloine, of the centrist UDF, called it an "uncertain bet", warning that the taxpayer could have to pay for it twice, once in the licence fee and again in a satellite or cable subscription.

France 24's images will largely come from its parent TV stations as well as other partners such as the agency Agence France Presse and Radio France International, prompting allegations that it will just be a round-up of other channels' content. With a team of 170 journalists of an average age of 30 and public funding of €86m (£58m) for the first year, France 24 is dwarfed by its competitors. CNN has a budget of €1.2bn and a staff of 4,000.

But at its headquarters, where a banner outside proclaims: "Everything you are not supposed to know", journalists say the station will influence world politics. Mark Owen, formerly of Granada TV, who will present the English morning news bulletins and debate show, said: "Take the conflict in Lebanon this summer. If Jacques Chirac's call for a ceasefire - which didn't even make BBC or CNN - had been reported earlier, it could have brought about an earlier resolution of the conflict. If Chirac's call had been reported more widely it maybe could have saved thousands of lives. That was a story calling out for a French angle, given the historic links to Lebanon."

The France 24 website will launch tonight and the station, available on cable or satellite, goes live tomorrow. There will be a 10-minute news bulletin each half hour and in between a series of magazines with topics including "humanitarian affairs", lifestyle, culture, and a monthly show on "economic intelligence", explained as spying wars between "hypercompetitive companies". The Week in France will tackle politics and society, and other weekly specials will come from Asia, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East.

Outside the glitzy building, the critical reaction has been favourable. Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Centre on the United States, said: "It's not an anti-American operation. It's more than that. France didn't have an international news channel to compete with many countries that have. What is remarkable is that is has taken such a long time to come about."

The rivals

Cable News Network (CNN)
Launched 1980 as the world's first 24-hour cable television news channel. Established by Ted Turner and now owned by Time Warner.
Serves At least 1.5 billion people in more than 212 countries and territories in seven languages.

BBC World
Launched October 1991 under the name BBC World Service Television.
Serves About 270m homes in more than 200 countries. Broadcasts in English.

Al-Jazeera
Launched 1996 with a $100m (£51m) grant from the emir of Qatar. Still financed by Qatar but claims editorial independence.
Serves International audience of 40-50 million viewers, mainly in the Arab world. Recently launched English-language sister channel.

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8) Business Week/AllBusiness.com: What is vendor leasing? [A quoi sert la location mandatée ? (enfin je crois que c'est ça...)]
http://allbusiness.businessweek.com/article.asp?ID=11202&CenterID=25&CatID=1840&chan=search

Starting a Business
What Is Vendor Leasing?
From AllBusiness.com *

In an effort to stimulate its sales, a retail vendor can align with a leasing company and provide what is known as vendor leasing. To do so, the vendor establishes a deal with a financing source so that the vendor can offer leases to customers. Essentially, the outside leasing firm substitutes as the vendor’s captive finance company.

Vendor leasing allows vendors to offer customers another option besides just cash-on-delivery or 30-day terms. On high-ticket items this can be a major benefit, since it may not be possible for some customers to meet such immediate payment terms. By extending the financing option through the outside financing company, the vendor offers a choice that allows customers to better maintain their own cash flow.

Vendor leasing, also known as lease asset servicing or vendor programs, helps build vendor-customer relationships while improving vendor sales volume. Customers can view the vendor as a one-stop shop where they can fulfill their orders and get financing, rather than having to seek financing beforehand from a bank or other lending institution.

By offering a financing program, the vendor is making a cash sale while receiving the funding from the finance company. This allows a vendor to have additional funding available for its own cash flow needs while collecting on the finance terms that it presented to the customer. Depending on the structure of the deal, the vendor may collect the money and then turn it over to the finance company, or (as is often the case) the customer may pay the money to the finance company directly.

Credit checking and operational administration may also be handled by the finance company. Either way, the result is the same — the vendor provides a finance option to its customers and if they accept it, the vendor receives cash from the financing company. Automobile manufacturers and dealers have been providing financing to customers for some time. A larger financing source (such as GMAC) can provide very good terms, while individual dealers typically cannot.

If you are a vendor, a vendor leasing program can give your business a competitive edge over competitors who are unable to offer anything similar to their customers. By using the financing option, customers can also opt for top-of-the line items, which they could not otherwise afford with 30-day payment terms. In addition, you have the funds to build your inventory and offer a wider selection.

To set up such a program, the financing company will typically want to know that your company has been in business for at least a year. It will review the stability of your business and the customers with whom you make transactions. While there is some determination of the level of risk to the financing company, this type of financing is normally easier to obtain than bank loans or lines of credit.

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9 ) The Economist: Reforming the unreformable [D'un dossier spécial sur la France, peut-on réformer en France ?]
http://economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RDQRPGQ

Reforming the unreformable

Oct 26th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Some of France's big companies have shown the way

A FASHIONABLE subject for debate in recent years has been the question: “Is France reformable?” The implicit assertion is that it is not. The government capitulated to student protests. It has shied away from taking on such producer interests as teachers and train-drivers, electricity workers and hypermarkets. After nearly 12 years in office, President Chirac, for one, appears to have concluded that the French cannot take it. In a recent book, Franz-Olivier Giesbert, a journalist who has known Mr Chirac for over 20 years, writes that, traumatised by street revolts, the president “has ended up convinced that France is not able to tolerate any major reform”.

France, according to this argument, is inherently conservative and resistant to change. Some put this down to the system. Michel Crozier, a French sociologist, once described his country as a “blocked society”: too many top-down bureaucratic rules breed distrust among the people and create a system that can evolve only through crisis. Others suggest that the problem lies with the French themselves. In his 1976 book Alain Peyrefitte argued that France needed a “mental revolution” to alter its mindset in favour of risk-taking and innovation. Many French people seem to agree. Asked why reform in France is so difficult, respondents in a poll by LH2 in April this year said that the biggest single reason was “the state of mind of the French”.

What seems to make reform especially hard is a peculiar French hostility to the market, the embrace of which is a precondition to many reforms. In a recent survey by Globescan, a polling group, 71% of Americans agreed that the free-market economy was the best system available, as did 66% of the British and 65% of the Germans. For France, the figure was 36%.

Some of this thinking seems to be taught at school. Of the three main baccalauréat options, one is a subject called “economic and social science”. Mr Cohen of the Council of Economic Analysis prefers to call it “a radical neo-Marxist amalgam of sociology and soft economics”. One widely used textbook devotes page after page to Marxist theories of production, class struggle and bourgeois exploitation. In a section on the labour market, it states that “employers seek to divide workers in order to reduce solidarity between different categories of staff.”

Perhaps such teaching helps to explain why the French gave a Trotskyite and a Revolutionary Communist 10% of the vote between them in the first round of the 2002 presidential election—and the Communist candidate another 3%. Marxist thinking still has a grip on the collective imagination. It comforts those at the bottom of the pile who rail at the recent explosion in executive pay, including some exorbitant corporate pay-offs. The 35-hour-week rules were based on the misapprehension that there is a fixed amount of work to be shared out. Nor is anti-liberalism a monopoly of the left. “Globalisation is not an ideal,” declared Mr de Villepin in his inaugural speech as prime minister last year. “It cannot be our destiny.”

But are the French really as anti-market as they profess to be? Consider Carrefour, a French hypermarket in Montesson, west of Paris. The store is vast, staff move around on rollerblades and shoppers can buy anything from mountain bikes to foie gras. Its shelves offer 14 different brands of washing powder, 12 of yogurt and eight of fresh fruit juice. The Tropicana brand alone, part of America's PepsiCo, is stocked in 18 different varieties, including ruby breakfast, sanguinello, mandarine-framboise, rouge plaisir, multivitamines, orange-mangue, pomme-litchi, réveil des tropiques and tonic breakfast, not to mention orange sans pulpe, orange avec pulpe, or even pulpissimo.

Watching French shoppers piling their trolleys high with such brands, it is hard to conclude that they are truly hostile to globalisation. In fact, many of the articles they so cheerfully consume are produced by their own companies, made rich by the system the French say they distrust. “I think we are totally capitalistic, but we just won't say so,” says Laurence Parisot, the head of MEDEF.

Don't mention the G-word

France's big world-class firms are as global as they come, striding into new markets from China to India and reaping record profits. Look at almost any industry and you will find a leading global French company: cars (Renault), tyres (Michelin), cement (Lafarge), drinks (Pernod-Ricard), insurance (AXA), food (Danone), cosmetics (L'Oréal), supermarkets (Carrefour), luxury goods (LVMH), and so on. Sodexho, a French catering company, even feeds the American army. As Claude Bébéar, chairman of AXA and head of Institut Montaigne, a think-tank, points out, such firms make about 80% of their profits outside France. They are daily proof of France's ability to benefit from globalisation.
AFP Air France's Spinetta made it fly

Moreover, French employees within such firms have long learned to live by the rules of the global economy. Unionisation in France's private sector is low. In reality, France is divided: between those in the private sector who have long adapted to the market in their working lives, and those in the public sector who may accept globalisation as consumers in their free time but not while toiling at their desks.

But what happens to former public-sector workers whose enterprises have been privatised? Some of the most sclerotic formerly state-owned groups, icons of what the French call immobilisme, have been turned into competitive global enterprises. In the process, they have transformed work practices and staff attitudes. If this is possible, it suggests that the problem lies with institutions and the way change is managed, not some peculiar French conservative gene.

A good example is Air France. A decade ago the state-owned national airline was paralysed by bureaucracy and union-led resistance. Having teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, it was plagued by strikes and came to epitomise France's inefficient public sector. Yet today it is a profitable, competitive company. The French state's share in the company has shrunk to just 18.6%. Having merged with KLM, Air France is now Europe's biggest airline. In 2005-06 it made an operating profit of €936m, 69% up on the previous year.

“The idea of reform being impossible in France is contradicted by the facts,” says Jean-Cyril Spinetta, Air France's boss since 1997. Plainly, shareholder pressure after the company was floated helped to prompt change at the airline. Mr Spinetta has also taken some bold strategic gambles, such as the merger with KLM and an ambitious expansion of routes in the late 1990s. But a lot is also due to less tangible changes in the corporate culture.

In essence, Mr Spinetta inherited a distrustful, confrontational workplace and introduced some novel management tools: telling the truth, communicating with employees and explaining things. For instance, in the past, he says, good results were sometimes hidden from staff in case they triggered demands for pay increases. “The hardest thing was to get people to trust Air France,” he says.

Over time, Mr Spinetta earned credibility by keeping his word. When he faced fierce union hostility to privatisation, he promised there would be no redundancies, and made none. When unions claimed that airline deregulation would destroy Air France, he insisted that it would instead bring opportunities, and was proved right. Having gained trust, he was able to push through reforms such as measuring productivity and introducing a service culture. His long tenure has also helped to bring stability. Since 2002 Air France has not had a single major strike.

Making mammoths dance

Other erstwhile fossils have been revived too, such as Renault, a carmaker that was near-bankrupt two decades ago, or Arcelor, a steelmaker recently snapped up by India's Mittal. Even Electricité de France, a fortress of communist-backed unionists, is quoted on the Paris bourse and sells electricity to Londoners.

What does this mean for French reform more broadly? The same principles apply. French politicians need to come clean about what needs to happen, and why. If they can win over public opinion, they will find it easier to face down those opposing change, whether they are public-sector unions or oligopolistic companies.

Unless France manages to introduce such reforms, its economy will struggle to recover, and any growth will be largely jobless. Failure will not only mean a lack of prosperity. It will also undermine the country's ability to face up to one of its biggest social challenges: the integration of its ethnic and religious minorities.

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10 ) BBC: Firms ban festive decorations [Pour plusieurs raisons, les entreprises UK interdisent les décorations de Noël dans leurs locaux.]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6210532.stm

Firms 'ban festive decorations'
Festive decorations are a rare sight in offices, the report says

Christmas decorations have been banned by almost three out of four UK employers, for fear of offending staff from other faiths, a survey says. The study found that 74% of managers were not allowing any festive decorations in their workplaces this year, an increase on 71% in 2005. Bosses also felt that Christmas trees and tinsel made offices unprofessional, according to law firm Peninsula. Its survey spoke to 2,300 employers across the UK.

'Political correctness culture'

"Christmas trees and decorations may well be a thing of the past in many workplaces this Christmas as political correctness culture has spread to the workplace," said Peter Done, managing director of Peninsula. "Although employers who are enforcing the ban are sceptical and dismayed by this trend, they feel that they have little choice in the matter due to the threat of litigation; as they have to protect themselves, their reputation and their livelihood."

A separate festive report suggests that workers are increasingly having to spend their own money at office Christmas parties. Only a third of UK workers are now given a completely free night at their annual festive bash, according to supermarket chain Somerfield, which spoke to 1,200 adults.

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11) Good Magazinet: Bright Orange [Pour dénoncer les maisons abandonnées à Détroit, des artistes les repeignent à la sauvage la nuit en orange... alors que la Mairie, au lieu de les raser ou réparer, les dénonce comme vandales.]
http://www.goodmagazine.com/issue001/Bright_Orange

words by Eva Steele-Saccio
photo by Object Orange

Bright Orange

It began with a sign: a bright orange traffic detour sign standing next to one of Detroit's thousands of abandoned houses. Four local artists, a group who call themselves Object Orange, realized they could use the shocking color of the sign to draw attention to the city's pervasive urban decay. With up to 15 volunteers they staged clandestine predawn painting expeditions, covering blighted houses in buckets of "Tiggerific" orange paint. "People become blind," says OO's Mike, who, like other members of the group, prefers anonymity for legal reasons. "We want to make them take note." Out of Detroit's more than 7,000 abandoned buildings, fewer than 2,000 are slated for destruction, leaving a long waiting list of properties that have become drug dens, prostitution hubs, and dangerous neighborhood playgrounds.

Commuters have begun to notice the orange houses, as have unhappy city officials. "They may believe they are making artistic statements," says James Canning, communications coordinator for the Mayor's office, "but they are just trespassing and adding to the blight of the buildings." Eyesore or not, the orange is noticeable. Four of OO's first 11 orange houses were almost immediately demolished. Canning attributes this to coincidence and careful calculation (demolition plans are public record); the artists see it as a critical step toward re-invigorating their deteriorating city. "Our part is starting conversations," says OO member Jacques. "Some people do outreach. We paint houses orange."

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The Christmas season is upon us, and that means invites to the office holiday party, open houses, and preschool-benefit auctions are starting to pile up on the table next to your front door. You're probably starting to get anxious—wear velvet headband or diamond clippie? bring potted plant or midrange merlot?—and yet you are likely ignoring the most important holiday question of all: Who are you going to sue this holiday season, and, more vitally, who is going to sue you?

Luckily, the folks at Lawyers.com are all over this issue this year, and help is on the way. Their recent Harris poll reveals most Americans are woefully unaware of the legal liability they assume when they agree to host a holiday gathering. Even more alarming, most Americans are staggeringly unaware of the absolute cash cow holiday parties can become, in the hands of the right employee. Finding yourself a little short on cash this month? Your best bet may well be to wear something slutty and get fondled by someone from tech support. (Disclaimer: Nothing in the foregoing sentence constitutes legal advice.)

According to this article, in a national phone survey of 1,051 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, conducted only two years ago, "nearly one in four (24%) adults do not know that a party host who serves alcohol to a clearly drunk guest may be legally responsible if that person goes on to hurt or kill someone in a car accident." Yet, the article continues "one in five (20%) adults will host or co-host a holiday party this year at which alcohol will be served."

Horrifying as that statistic is, this one is worse: "Twenty-nine percent of adults have experienced or observed sexual advances between people who work together at such gatherings." Now, you may not have known that observed sexual advances are legally actionable. Frankly, it was news to us, as well. But that means your potential liability as a prospective host is through the roof.

The article on Lawyers.com offers a few practical suggestions for hosts seeking to immunize themselves from this devastating legal liability: Car keys should be collected and returned only to sober drivers. Also, "[l]etting everyone attending explicitly know what behavior is prohibited—including that which is flirtatious or sexual—can help remove sexual harassment problems." But it seemed to us at Slate that this is only the tip of the civil-liability iceberg. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself what happens if one of your holiday guests chokes on the cheese log? Or considered what happens if a guest loses an eye to the mistletoe? And what if one of your colleagues suffers social anxiety or embarrassment at the hands of a cruel workmate? Or an atheist guest "accidentally" bumps into someone wearing a Santa sweater?

May as well declare bankruptcy now.

At Slate, our motto for every holiday get-together is: "You can never be too careful, or too joyless," and as such, we now affix the following notice to every holiday-related invitation. We beseech you to do the same:

WARNING: You are herein invited to attend a Holiday Party. Should you choose to attend this event, you are herein advised that you do so at your own peril. Food served may be manufactured in factories that may contain machinery that may have touched peanuts. In the absence of any coherent party-based sexual-harassment policy, you are warned that any hugging/touching/casual flirting/wine-stem fondling/hair tossing/breast gazing/butt grabbing will be deemed actionable at law. All guests must maintain a 5-foot distance from all others at all times (spouses included). Appropriate topics for conversation are: work; sports; light political banter; reality-television shows. Any unapproved conversational topics shall be cleared in advance by the Human Resources department. All dance moves shall be preapproved by the HR department. Seminars on these moves shall be conducted twice daily in the small conference room on the second floor between now and the day of the party. All closets, conference rooms, restrooms, and other possible areas of sexual misconduct are to be padlocked for the duration of the event. Small children are to be chaperoned at all times. Any child found playing or otherwise conducting himself in a childlike manner will be summarily removed from the premises. Should you or your partner feel at any point during the party that you have been sexually harassed, socially discomfited, religiously proselytized, or otherwise made to feel uneasy in any way, a team of HR lawyers will be made available to you immediately. Do not minimize your feelings or wait a few days to see if the bad feeling blows over. Prompt attention to any social discomfort is critical to eradicating it in the workplace. Once again, we wish you and yours a very happy holiday season, and hope to make this year's office party the best ever.

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13) Bloomberg: Chirac's news TV channel may draw limited viewers [Et bien, suis obsédé par France 24... ici on raconte que personne ne regardera la télé Chirac... alors où vont nos impôts ???] 
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=ajt6.YZcxqTY&refer=europe

Chirac's News TV Channel May Draw Limited Viewers (Update2)

By Helene Fouquet

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- French President Jacques Chirac's international news television channel, which goes on the air tonight, is entering an overcrowded market and may fail to win viewers from other stations, media analysts said.

Chirac's government has poured 111 million euros ($147.75 million) into the project that is aimed at taking the French view on world affairs to an international audience. The channel -- France 24, pronounced ``France Ventekatre,'' -- initially in French and English, may have to settle for a relatively small audience, media analysts said.

``The fact that it's a channel from France gives it a greater chance to be welcomed by foreign audiences, but the market is highly competitive, so it will struggle to win their loyalty,'' said Brice Teinturier, an analyst with polling company TNS-Sofres in Paris.

France 24 is likely to be the last of the big projects in Chirac's 12-year reign. His current term ends in May and he hasn't said if he'll run again. His other grand projects include the Quai Branly native arts museum, which opened in Paris in June. Chirac, 74, pushed for the channel in 2003 after the U.S. drowned out France's opposition to the Iraq war. His web site today said he has wanted the channel since 1996.

The French channel will be one of more than 70 such stations. Russia Today, a state-run channel, went on the air last year. Asia is covered by Singapore-based MediaCorp News- owned ``Chanel News Asia'' since 2000. Doha, Qatar-based Al Jazeera International's new English language channel started airing on Nov. 15.

`Indispensable'

``Viewership can be small as long as it's influential,'' said Richard Ayre, former deputy chief executive of British Broadcasting Corp. News in a telephone interview last month. ``Being there is critically important, being there in English. It's about strategic influence, profit is not important.''

At a launch party last night in the Tuileries gardens, off the Place de la Concorde in central Paris, a pre-recorded interview with Chirac was played.

``It is indispensable for a great country such as France to have a vision on the world and to stream this vision,'' the president said.

The content of the channel, dubbed ``CNN a la francaise'' by the French press, was determined after the completion of a study several months ago in seven countries including the U.K., Germany and Algeria, Jacques-Yves Bonsergent, the chief operating officer of the channel, said in an interview at the station's Issy-les-Moulineaux headquarters on the southern outskirts of Paris.

Market Reach

The channel's news programs began being streamed on its Web site last night.

``Viewership is a long-term target for France 24, it may take several years, like BBC World in its time,'' Michel Sasportes, an analyst in Paris at media-analysis company OC&C Strategy said in an interview. ``They must work on notoriety, how to get mentioned and picked up by local news channels. Al Jazeera spread worldwide like that.''

The satellite and cable channel will be available to viewers in Africa, Middle-East, Europe, the United Nations and some areas in Washington D.C. that could include the White House and the International Monetary Fund.

Coverage areas are of the essence to gain viewers and influence, Sasportes said. Africa and Middle East are France's historical zones of influence.

``But Asia is crucial,'' he said. ``It's where France must build its economic power, something this channel will help do.'' France 24 will be in Asia by 2010, Bonsergent said.

Resources

Headed by Alain de Pouzilhac, the former head of Paris- based advertising company Havas SA, the new channel will have 170 journalists focusing on news from Europe, the Middle East and Africa in French, English and Arabic. The channel plans to also broadcast to Latin America, Asia and North America.

France 24 wants to eventually reach 250 million viewers, as much as the BBC World news channel. Its annual, state-funded budget will near 90 million euros until 2011, Bonsergent said. CNN's annual budget is $550 million, according to Monterey, California-based Kagan Media Research. The French state, which secured a five-year budget line for France 24, does not expect 2007 advertising revenue to exceed 3 million euros, and the channel does not expect to become profitable, Bonsergent said.

Al Jazeera's English channel has 300 journalists in London, Washington, Kuala Lumpur and Doha. The channel declined to comment on its budget. CNN, owned by New York-based Time Warner Inc., has 4,000 staff. British Broadcasting Corp. has 2,050 journalists.

`Very Late'

France 24 is a venture between France's two largest broadcasters, Television Francaise 1 SA, the country's most- watched station, and state-owned competitor France Televisions. It placed advertisements today on The New York Times' Web site, in the International Herald Times and in French dailies, including Le Monde, Le Parisien, Le Figaro.

``The channel does come very late,'' Sasportes said. Newspapers such as Liberation and Le Monde had speculated about the channel's ability to make it to air as the launch date was postponed by almost a year.

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