Two weeks under the sea

If we pay attention to what the newspapers tell us, Osama bin Laden endures two weeks on the waters of the Arabian Sea – round 4,500 meters deep.

Well-known British actor Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean) characterized as Bin Laden

That area of the Indian Ocean gives up the ghost in all. But who knows what the carcass became in such a dark abyss, considering that the official shroud was supposedly placed in a plastic bag and ballasted enough to reach the bottom. Barack Obama has chosen to ignore the wise advice of senators and representatives calling to « show the body so that everyone witnesses it. »  At this point in time, no pictures or videos. Shooting a gangland killing, an execution or an act of extreme war – it makes no difference actually – is often unpleasant. Remember the hanging of Saddam Hussein or the beheadings of Western hostages in the hands of any franchise of al Qaeda. If you have a mobile phone and you are among the murderers, the recording is a guaranteed success. Before the technology was so extraordinarily advanced, everything was different. Stalin would have paid what is not written by recording the moment when a revolutionary gentleman tacked an ice pick in Trotsky’s head. And yet, he would have ordered that no one shoot the kidnapping of 5 to 10 million missing from the Stalinist regime, except for manipulating images and place them in Belgrade or Berlin moments before their perfect revolutionary forced disappearance. Actors, circumstances and cons change, but a good number resemble closely.

Exterminators are decorated in life, even in private. Of course, when they die they are buried in mausoleums set aside for national heroes. But let us not make a mistake. Bin Laden must be surrounded by houris sirens in his aquatic grave. Worse would be wearing an orange Guantanamo Bay-style typical dress…

Libyan costly battles

The battle in the Libyan desert lacks of cinematographic epics.

Neither “Rommel” Muammar el-Qaddafi withdraws as in Germanic retreat with his Jamahiriya’s Afrika Korps nor does Montgomery-champion-of-freedom conclude crushing the bad guys. But one thing’s for sure, we see how accurately are destroyed from the air some armored tanks that seem relics of the Second World War. We also perceive groups of insurgents, up the road, down the road, burning wheel on civilian vehicles with batteries of rockets that on no occasion will reach any target.

Clumsy images, testimonial prints, broadcasted and televised where the self-proclaimed members of the Libyan Free Army proclaim: « God’s with us. » Allah’s intervention must be prodigious, because only in this way insurgents have not been literally wiped out by the Muammar el-Qaddafi’s worshippers. But we do not see either pictures of massacres – unless the good old Tarantino is unable to record them.

It is a war of mirages, where the only unnatural gadget is the overwhelming war machine deployed by NATO, U.S., UK and France at the forefront. France which does not miss an opportunity, that’s why it is the third world’s biggest arms exporter. In fact, France sold military equipment to Libya up to yesterday. That may be, but our Odyssey Dawn is limited in terms of GDP. Nothing to do with the fireworks deployment that the American Tomahawk missiles display – hundreds of which have been released at a rate of 600,000 euros each. France is further unpretentious. Our tiny little Raffale fighters consume nearby 40,000 insignificant euros in fuel per flight hour. Best not to shoot or we sink our GDP.

Bed sports for Christmas

I cannot resist the temptation to share the video that my adorable Click-Clack-Chuc-Chuc forwarded me a few days ago under the title “Sport en chambre” (which somewhat means “Sports at Room”).

It’s in fact Birth-day, a very funny composition, full of finesse, which the staging is definitely inspired by Mozart.

Performance was ‘committed’ by the Nederlands Dans Theater under the direction of its former (but always associated) art director, the famous Czech dancer and choreographer Jiří Kylián. It is watermarked by his Six Dances, a sort of facetious tribute to Mozart and the nonchalance of the Baroque period. Birth-Day was inspired in part by Sabine Kupferberg, who is one of the performers, as well as Jiří Kylián’s wife. The music is by Mozart, the dancers (who play in real time while the scene is performed in fast motion) wear period costumes and wigs. Here the duo recreates an endearing naughty bed scene.

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Also, a frantic Charlie Chaplin-ish scene, always in line with Six Dances, is where two dancers are preparing a birthday cake competition that ends in smackdown.

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That’s a great fun. Judge for yourself and enjoy it!

May God descend from Heaven and see

Religion is not a superstitious madness in decline, as apostles of secularization prophesied for decades. Far from being so, we go through a time where God is on everyone’s lips. Even charlatans. Some wield the Old Testament, others the Quran and even some the big bang. The minister of a small Protestant sect in Florida — whose parishioners are counted on one’s hand fingers — has turned into a macho man threatening to reduce to ashes the holy book of Islam.

Instead of being treated like an alien landed on a pink sausage TV program (not to be confused with the Bologna mortadella), the crazy ideas of this Terry Jones dude have received global coverage in a way that it could spark Muslim anger — and those who have nothing else to do than listening to the nonsense of a disturbed infidel. Barack Obama has even mediated the outrageous mess after David Petraeus (the commanding general of the crusaders in Afghanistan) did the same. Seeing is believing, Saint Thomas would say. As if the Pentecostal sheepdog’s daunting feat was not quite enough, Stephen Hawking has turned into a shaman of astrophysics.

The British scientist has ruled that there is no need to seek God in the origin of the explosion that gave birth to the universe. Skip the rhetoric intelligent design, exit the pretension of celestial laboratories. The world was born by spontaneous generation. The synthesized voice of the Oxford genius will encourage more than one atheist missionary, but it will not be heard either by the pastor Jones nor his competitors in islamic madrasas. And, far from it, by aliens. Those entities which Hawking advises not to contact with under risk of being colonized.

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Let us be grateful to the Icelandic wit

It is amazing. Neither Al Gore nor Cohn-Bendit haven’t blamed the volcano eruption on global warming yet.

Wonderful to read the global news on our little local volcanic cloud issue. I spent the day in the home garden and I had the pleasure of hearing birdsong under sunny skies – a pleasant change from the constant drone of air traffic into the airport (usually one plane every 30 minutes) Out of question of returning to normality – rather take the opportunity to breathe the silence and the bees buzz. I cannot feel sorry for people «stranded” at airports (*) or those who “need” to go to the supermarket or down town. Gentlemen, we live in a global village — do your traveling virtually or if not, at least, enjoy the adventure.

Looks like Mother Nature is just welcoming Earth Day on April 22. No? Maybe this is the way Iceland is getting even with the Banksters in Europe

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(*) Clarification: the complaints office is at the volcano’s foot.