2010 Martin Luther King’s day

Monday, January 18^th 2010 we celebrate the birthday of Dr Martin Luther King. Children and students are happy as schools are closed that day. I am glad too as that means one more day to prepare my midterm exams, however I can’t help but thinking about this untiring leader who fight his entire life for racial equality until his assassination in 1968 and who paved the way to Barack Obama, the first African American President.

Both Dr King and President Barack Obama have received the Nobel Peace prize

Dr King won the prize in response to his non-violent and steady fight to make black civil rights recognized. Dr King believed in a peaceful world with the inclusion of all people.

President Barack Obama received 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts in creating a new climate in international politics to secure a better future in the world.

Dr King and President Obama are and will remain strong symbols of persons moved by a conviction of a better world and who deployed all their energy to this goal.

Would you adhere or not to their fight or political views, you can’t help but respecting them for their struggle.

I compare these people as catalysts in chemistry. They make some chemical reactions possible while they would not happen otherwise, then nothing can stop the process once it is initiated.

Dr King’s assassination has not stopped the civil right movement and actions. Today, if we reflect to his life and legacy, I think mentalities have changed and regulations have been established for not judging people by their color of their skin by their values and character.

This has been the cornerstone to civil rights recognition. To me, we need to continue the way paved by Dr King to the recognition of diversity. By diversity I mean cultural, race, gender, abilities, disabilities, and generations. This is a phenomenal richness and our greatest strength if we are intelligent enough to use it properly.

Being an optimistic person, I hope that nations will be intelligent enough to adopt the right attitudes and decisions for a better future and better values in the world.

Don’t wait for acting. Everyone at his individual level can act and make things change.

Johannesburg prepares for 2010 Soccer’s World Cup

If you are fond of soccer you are probably seeing the 2010 soccer’s world cup in Johannesburg as the main event of the year. I agree to say this tournament will be very important but I can’t help but being shocked seeing South chosen for this event.

It is appalling to see South Africa investing billions to get the infrastructures for the visitors, while several thousand of people are living under the poverty line.

I did some research on the situation in South Africa and I become completely appalled after reading some articles about the human trafficking in force in South Africa.

Because of the extremely poverty that can reach more than 90% in some townships, poor people are reduced to sell their children for as little as 50$ to human-trafficking syndicates who use them in human slavery of all its forms, that mean organ traffic, sexual slavery and drug traffic.

‘’Soccer world Cup is seen as a unique and exceptional chance to do more business’’, trafficker said, ‘’first with the stadium’s construction workers and then with the thousands of visitors’’

Even if international conventions have banned slavery in the past 150 years, it is reported that there are more slaves today than at any time in the history.

At the eve of Martin Luther Kings Day, who struggled for the human rights, I am really ashamed to see supposedly right-thinking people giving their support to this traffic. To me it is like collusion and it should be condemned by the international authorities.

This relies on diplomatic will and pressure from the International community.

Would a threat of boycott - as it was done at the occasion of the Olympic game in Beijing - be enough to impose severe measures against human traffic to appeal everybody to take a stance against an important question as human rights and liberties in South Africa?

A fragile balance

Last week, we were driving back from school when a deer crossed the street. By chance my mother was prompted enough to avoid it. I wondered: ‘’What would have been our days if we have had an accident? What is most dramatic than an accident that can break your life?’’

Last week, several thousands people have lost the life in a dramatic earthquake in Haiti. I wondered: ‘’Why that happened? What did innocent children, women and men did to lose the life or become deprived from their families?’’

Last Christmas, 278 people travelling from Amsterdam hardly escape from a terrorist attack.

Everyday, we are witness or involved in situations that recall us how fragile the life is and how sudden it may happen. We all agree to say that nothing is more important than life and the rest is relative compared to that.

Saying that, why do we make our day to day life so difficult, busy with work, school, activities, without time to think anything else than our obligations for the next day?

I was thinking about that and came to the conclusion that it was probably the only way human being has found to preserve themselves from the unbearable paradox of the life, I mean life has a end for everybody but everybody can loose the life by sheer accident like in a lottery.

Because it is impossible to live knowing there is a Damocles’ sword above our head, the only strategy is to burden our brain and conscience with things to do to avoid thinking we are constantly in a very sharp and fragile balance that can be broken instantly by external event.

Can we say that life is like time parameter in the theory of relativity of Einstein in which time does not have the same value depending on the field of reference considered? Life does not have the same value if you consider it from a narrow standpoint burdened by your To Do List, or if you consider it from a broader view and recall we are in a short-lived and fragile state. This would make us more humble and positive.

Black or White?

This could be the title of an article in Newsweek on racial segregation still surviving in some countries or the question asked when you start to play chess.

It is indeed the endless conversation I have with my mom concerning decoration at home. Black flooring with white walls or clear carpet and dark walls, this was the question.

When I arrived in the US, I have been surprised to see how people decorate their interior. They often paint the walls while we usually put decorative paper walls and they tend to put dark and drab colors while we will use various and bright colors for a nice creative effect. I am very sensitive to colors.

There are lots of theories on colors and how they reflect the mindset and spirit of the person. To me the perception of the colors is a unique human characteristic. Typically my cat does not see things as me as she does not perceive colors. Why and how can we see colors?

From a Physics standpoint, colors are nothing else than quanta of photons moving on a wave at different frequencies. It is a chemical reaction induced by the interaction of the photons from light that will spark off the reaction in the retina and the transduction mechanism to the brain who will translate the information into color. To me color perception is a miracle of the nature and I wonder how would be my life if everything was monochrome. Take a minute and think about a world without color nuance and solicitation. Our field of need would be reduced to the very and sheer satisfaction of the need only. No place for marketing strategy playing with our senses.

So thinking about sad our life would be without color, we decided to put bright colors at home.

V

Hi everybody. Happy New Year!! I know what you think. You think, “If only I could have one or two more days off…” Fortunately we have a snow day today and what a better way to enjoy a snow day than by having a little challenge. The one who would be able to pronounce the following sentence in less than a minute would gain my eternal admiration.

“Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant and vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsaving the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition! The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me "V".”

Most of you would have recognized it, this quote come from the motion picture “V for Vendetta”. Here is the scene from the movie:

I watched this movie during the break and I have to admit that it is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. I regret I waited so long before watching it.

After having been transported in fascist England for two hours, I wanted to know how such an incredible story had been invented and I did a couple researches. I discovered that the authors of the original comic books had taken their inspiration in historical events that happen in the 16^th century. The every first scene of the movie show a man carrying a lot of powder in what looks like an underground gallery (which in fact is underneath Parliament). Short after, he is arrested and hanged in a public place. This man’s name was Guy Fawkes. He belonged to a Catholic radical group and participated in the Gunpowder Plot. Fawkes wanted to blow up the House of Parliament and saw this act more as a symbol and a necessary action to end the discrimination against Catholics.

Also, the first sentence pronounced in the movie is a famous quote by Guy Fawkes: “Remember, remember the fifth of November,/The gunpowder treason and plot,/I see no reason/Why the gunpowder treason/Should ever be forgot.”

What really fascinated me in this movie is the new look it gives on the importance of an idea. Beginning with Guy Fawkes and in the rest of the movie, it is suggested that ideas can change the world and are immortal, that when a dramatic event happen, we remember the idea, not the man who made it live for a second. Take Harper’s Ferry for example, you remember the idea that motivated the slaves to rebel against whites, you remember that they wanted emancipation but you do not remember the men who risked their lives for that idea.

December 25th in the air

Once again, Christmas has been marked by a dramatic event with the terrorist attack in the Amsterdam-Detroit flight. In 2004, a Tsunami left Indonesian islands devastated with more than 200 000 victims. In 1999, France was blown up by a very strong storm causing the death of several hundreds of people.

I don’t know why but Christmas time is often marked by dramatic events.

The terrorist attack of this year occupies a particular place to me as it is something that could have been avoided if security rules have been applied correctly. I am not a specialist but I make a difference between natural events unpredictable for which the best we can do is being prepared and know how to behave to protect oneself.

The terrorist attack was a surprise to me when we know the efforts deployed by the airport security to manage the risk. Obviously it was not enough or there was a flaw in the system that terrorist had identified and used to execute their plan.

I cannot understand how this Nigerian man on a watch list has been able to take this flight to the United States and why the detectors have not been able to detect the explosives concealed under his under wears.

Does that mean that the stressful and long security controls we are submitted to are useless?

I talked about that with my mom who knows the detection technology to try to understand the situation and above all if the dramatic event that happen on the Delta flight 253 was just an isolated case or if there is really a risk.

I will not expose the theory of the explosive detection, but from what I understood, there are two technologies available that could screen passengers and detect explosives but there are debates about them related to privacy violation as they show details of the body.

Obviously, terrorists are well aware of that point and used it to develop their plan.

My mom travels a lot in Europe and I worry a lot about this event as I realize that flying conditions are not completely safe and I hope that decisions will be made soon to allow the use of the techniques able to protect us.

Apple

I was in Apple store during Christmas week, looking for a new charger (because my cat ate the wire of the other one) for my MacBook and thinking that I would never have enough money to buy an iPhone to my mum for her Christmas present, when my attention was caught by a child eating an apple right next to me. I started to think about this child eating an apple and the Apple logo. Is there link between both? What is the origin of the logo for Apple Inc? Why the apple has been so many times used as a symbol?

I did a couple researches about Apple loge story and its symbolism.

A lot has been said about the logo, its origin and symbolism.

Originally the logo was a hand drawn logo featuring Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree and it is said that the apple was referring to the discovery of the gravity. As the initial logo was too complicated, a colored bitten apple has almost immediately replaced it.

There are several other theories. The first one refers to Alan Touring, a famous mathematician known for his discoveries in artificial intelligence and father of computing technologies. To escape criminal prosecution and discrimination due to his homosexuality, he committed suicide by biting in an apple poisoned with cyanide. The rainbow would be a reference to the rainbow flag used by the Gay community in the United States. The other theories are much simpler, though a little bit extravagant, but more largely accepted.

The apple would refer either to the fact that Job and Wozniak (the creator of Apple) were eating a lot of apples, as they did not have a lot of money at the beginning. That would be one of the reasons why they named their first computer Macintosh, which is a variety of apples.

Some others say that the apple has been chosen because they were both fans of the Beatles whose label was Apple Corps…

The rainbow color symbolized the fact that Apple was the first to propose images in color while others were still monochrome.

With the new iMac, Apple decided to discontinue the rainbow sign to stop the speculations running about the topic.

The paradox of the story came up when Apple entered in the music market with the iPod and iTunes and was sued by Apple Corp (Beatles) for using Apple logo to promote iPod. The Beatles firm finally lose the court challenge and paid a big amount of money to Apple.