To drive or not to drive at 16?

"Do you have your driving license?"

Those who ask me this question always seem puzzled when I answer: “ No, and I am not in a hurry to take it”.

For the US students, it is essential to have the driving license as soonest as possible and in most cases at 16. I think I understand the reasons for that. USA is a huge country, railroad and subway systems are only available in certain parts of the US, and distances between two points often require a car.

I understand the point. However, it is interesting to note that in the USA the highest rate for car accidents concern new drivers below 18years old.

Recent medical studies have shown that below 18 years old, brain is not completely formed and more particularly the area of the brain that participate the evaluation of risk and decision is not completed.

This may explain the high rate of fatal car accident to the new and under 18 years old drivers.

Coming from Europe, I am used to have access to public transportation everywhere and there is no need for students to get driving license as young as 16years.

In France, we can start learning when we are 16 by taking theory classes and a minimum of 20 hours driving lessons with an instructor. Then a certificate is released that permit us to drive with a parent. Then, it is required to drive at least 3000kms before be eligible to apply for the test. You can apply for the test when you are 18.

I think the driving training in France is very robust and prepare you correctly to be a driver conscious of the risks and dangers that may arise from you or others if rules are not correctly applied.

Another reason why I am not in a hurry to get my license now is because I have no mean to pay for the lessons, get a car and pay the insurance and gas. I will have a car when I will be able to get it and maintain it.

If it is essential in the US to get the driving license before 18, I think it should be included in the curriculum as a mandatory class. Personally, I am thinking about the need to get it as I may need it when I will have chosen my future college.

Happy birthday

I don’t know for you but personally I don’t like birthday celebration and don’t even understand why it is so important for so many people. How can you be happy the day that rings a bell recalling you are closer to the end of your journey?

What do we celebrate? This is my question each year. I remember when I was five years old, my older cousins told me the day before my birthday that I will becoming a “grown girl”. I was so frightened as he told me that as I thought that something terrible would happen during the night that would transform me. I was so troubled that I could not sleep that night.

Should we consider birthday time as rite of passage as it was done in the past by several tribes to celebrate the important period of the life? It was more a test than a party. Young boys had to proof they were able to fight and survive in difficult condition and young girls were submitted to other female proves.

I think that birthdays and other traditional celebrations like Christmas or Easter have been captured by the marketing prospects and converted into pure product of consumption. Have you noted that the month of your birthday you receive bunches of special offers from stores you have visited even once? It is boring and sad to realize that you are considered only under the angle of potential profit for the society.

Another point that completed my disillusion is when I realized that birth date is often used as your social security number to check your identity. You are ONLY a number. No consideration for the miracle of the life that happen when you were born. You are a number.

The only pleasure I have with my birthday is to see the joy of my mother and the endless narrative she likes to repeat each year about my birth. I like to see her joy. This is the best present I can receive.

The taste of the clementines.

I like eating clementines in winter. I like the taste of this small fruit easy to take with you, easy to peel and full of vitamin C. I was peeling one of this delicious fruit, when my attention stopped on the label – Product for California -. Suddenly my delight faded and I started to think about how much my delicious clementines have contributed to the pollution, greenhouse emission and climate change. California, 2000 miles from Ohio. They have probably be shipped by air. How much does the transport contribute to CO2 emissions? Suddenly, my clementines had another taste and I started to feel guilty. I needed a calculator..

France has introduced Green taxes and regulation since 2006. I remember my mother at the supermarket looking at the labels to see where the products were coming from and giving preference to local product rather than product coming from Guadeloupe or Africa that had required air transport and thus largely contributed to greenhouse emissions.

I don’t know how the carbon regulation will be translated in our economy and day to day life. Personally, I feel concerned by the topic but completely lost as to know what I can do at a personal level. Let’s take an example. I like salmon. When you are in front of fish counter you have the choice between fresh farmed, frozen and wild salmon. Question: how to know which of them has consumed less fuel to fish it and to ship it? Should we have to become an expert in fishing methods to know the difference it makes on climate impact when you want to buy a piece of salmon fish?

Will CAP-AND-TRADE rules help to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% as it is claimed or is it just poised to become the next indicator of performance for the industries who will receive tax reduction in return and therefore able to produce ;ore and pollute more.

Save the planet will not be a business solution only. I think it will take time as it is a question of mindset with huge financial interest at stake.

In the meantime, we will have to learn how to count our carbon contribution in our day to day life and try to reduce it as much as possible.

As my first action, I said my mom that we will spend our vacations in the US this year rather than flying to Italy as we planed it to do.

What if I had to study in Israeli University?

While you are preoccupied with deciding which college you will attend, swaying between criteria like cost, the most far from your parent, extra curriculum activities and so forth, I wanted to stop a little bit and think about the student living in stressful countries exposed to stress factors like hostile countries around you.

Have you ever thought about the chance you have to live in a peaceful and prosperous country and what would be your life and future I other conditions?

I did some researches and learned that if you were in Israel for example, your next obligation after your senior year would be three years military service if you are a man and two years if you are a woman. While it can be seen as a penalty, I wonder if this could explain why Israel produces mush more High Tech companies and is rated number three after USA and China with 98 NASDAQ listed companies and has produced several Nobel contribution.

It looks like Israel Army can be a real stepping stone for the best students if you are chosen by the Elite Units. These units are as prestigious a Harvard, Stanford or MIT and open unique possibilities to the applicants.

Moreover the military service offers the possibility to create and nurture a valuable cross cultural network of expertise and knowledge useful in their future career. Several startup companies are founded from technology and knowledge discovered during their military service.

This is the case of the startup company who has revolutionized the genetic science by being the first able to map the human genome based similar date analysis used to analyze terrorist network.

Another difference between Israeli students and students from other countries is their higher level of individual initiatives and their multidisciplinary skills producing a reserve of high-skilled multidisciplinary entrepreneurs, and yet millionaire young people.

To me the main reason why Israeli students are much more mature than US students when go to the college and then when in their career is because they have grown in a country where they can loose life every minute and they have learned to make rational, quick and right decisions for their life. They have acquired incomparable and valuable skills compared to their counterparts.

However should we wish to be faced to similar situations to gain in maturity? I don’t think so. But I think we should think more outside our small box and be more open to what happen all over the world.

Sherlock Holmes and TOK?

TOK is the well-known acronym Theory of Knowledge. What does that mean? Does that mean that there is a theory on what should by known and how it should be learned? That point remains unclear to me and continues to puzzle me. Who better than I know what I would like to learn and retain?

This is the paradox every student has to face to get the diploma; accumulate a basic knowledge in a range of mandatory matters even if you have no affinity for the topic.

You have certainly watch the remake of Sherlock Holmes inspired from the Novels of Sir Conan Doyle in which Sherlock Holmes is depicted as an eccentric character with an ample knowledge in a wide range of topic and served by a strong and minute sense of observation. Besides that, Sir Conan Doyle depicts his main character as perfectly ignorant in literature, philosophy and politics. I like the theory he develops to explain paradox between exceptional knowledge and ignorance of Sherlock Holmes.

He says that ‘’brain is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with furniture as you choose. A fool takes all sorts that come across so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, so that he has difficulty in laying is hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful as what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work. It is a mistake to think that little room has elastic walls and can be distend to any extend…It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones’’ - The complete Novels and Stories Sir Conan Doyle Vol1

What is the most important? I like Sherlock Holmes character as he appears as a strong and reliable figure. Too many people have the tendency to talk about topics they even don’t master, just to show up as a smart and interesting person.

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?