Hired guns.

Here is an op-ed piece on that whole Blackwater security scandal. I'm surprised that the story is consistently making the front pages, even a week later. My cynical side expected it to fade into thin air, like so many similar stories often do.

I don't agree with some of the stuff Paul Krugman says here. Like for instance his sweeping generalisation about these private military contractors being mercenaries. There are at least 4 very different types of PMCs operating in Iraq today...most of these companies are hired to build infrastructure, feed soldiers, transport materials and supply troops. Meaning that they are very rarely involved in actual combat situations so they could hardly be called mercenaries in the proper sense of the term. There is a small number of PMCs, like Blackwater, who are hired to help the army carry out specific missions, and these are the contractors who are causing all the problems.

I also do not agree with Krugman when he says that the US government has had plenty of time to figure out a way to replace these PMCs. I'm curious to know who he would have put in their place: the hundreds of thousands of US troops that don't exist because the army is spread too thin? the Iraqi army that was disbanded as soon as Bremer took over? or how about all those allies who have progressively pulled their troops out because the situation has become too chaotic?

The privatization of war is not an Iraq-specific phenomena. Former military powers are no longer able to afford maintaining massive armies and the nature of war has changed so much that such power in numbers is no longer necessary nor desirable. While Krugman is right in portraying the situation as a out of control, he isn't considering the fact that resorting to PMCs is inevitable in an endeavor as gigantic as the Iraq invasion.

Slow day at the office.

My internship is not the most challenging work I've ever done in my life, especially when you compare it to the veritable deluge of papers, presentations and projects that I had to do last year. Some days I complain that I feel like my brain is slowly turning to mush due to inactivity, but most days I am thankful for the slow pace. It will get more challenging once I get started on my research project. But for now I am at the mercy of the french postal system, which has yet to deliver a book I ordered online over a week ago.

Thankfully, I've reached Facebook overload level - I've spent so much time on it recently that something in my brain must have snapped and turned me off it. That shit's time consuming and useless and does not contribute in any way to one's intellectual development (unless of course you got to this blog through the link on my facebook profile). And the nine long hours I spend at the office every day just got a whole lot more enjoyable now that the New York Times decided to make ALL their online articles FREE!! So I just found this excellent (but devastating) report on the deadly consequences of China's economic boom. Some of the statistics are unbelievable: 500 million people lack access to safe drinking water, air pollution is causing 350 000 to 400 000 premature deaths each year, cancer due to poor air/water quality is now the leading cause of death...etc etc. If you have 15 minutes to spare, I strongly recommend you read it here. It's part 1 of a series.

Weegee.

On Saturday I checked out the Weegee exhibit at the Musée Maillol. It was absolutely delightful. Arthur Fellig (aka: Weegee) is considered to be the founding father of photojournalism. He captured the harsh reality of life in New York City in the years following the Great Depression and leading up to WWII. While most of his photographs deal with poverty, death and misery, the composition is such that you almost forget you're looking at real people and not still frames of a movie.



There has always been a debate over the artistic value of Weegee's work. His critics accused him of taking advantage of his fellow citizens and profiting from their misery. I even read that certain people consider him to be one of the precursors of sensationalist tabloid photography. Granted, most of his crime scene shots are nothing more than...well, crime scene shots. But in his other pieces, he has such an amazing ability to capture raw human emotions, or pick up on the sombre irony of a situation, or sometimes even bait his subjects to create a unique moment (like this picture of a drunk woman giving the evil eye to two ostentatiously dressed ladies) that such critiques are unfounded.



Last night I saw the Julie Delpy movie 2 Days in Paris. If you ever want to see a near-perfect depiction of the difference between North American and French ways of seeing the world, I highly recommend this movie. Sure, sometimes she exaggerates certain situations for comedic purposes, but in general the script conveys the French sense of personal space, humour, privacy and human rapport so accurately. The moral of the story: North Americans take themselves too seriously, the French don't take anything seriously. Which begs the question: if I'm half-french and half-canadian does that make me the ideal human being?

is it 4:30 yet?

Another gem from the Vice magazine blog:



This is what happens when Quebec, Reggae, and Jazz take a shit.

I figured 11:30 probably wasn't an appropriate time to take my lunch break seeing as I got here at 9:30. But time really flies by when you're surfing the dos and don'ts section on the Vice mag blog, desperately trying to supress uncontrolable fits of laughter.

Pas à la hauteur.

Last night's movie was disappointing. Story of a guy in a happy relationship with a wonderful woman, who wakes up one morning and decides: I'm not good enough for her, she's going to leave me, I can't commit. The director should have saved himself the money and hired a camera crew to follow me around for the past year and a half. The story would have been the same, except with more laughs and tears. Snap.

Last week I saw another disappointing movie, but for entirely different reasons. I don't like Michael Moore but I am always willing to give his movies a chance because I consider that he plays an important role as a shit-disturber. America needs more documentary filmmakers with his unique combination of popularity and ability to ask the uncomfortable questions/annoy the hell out of people in high places.

I should have left the movie theatre appalled at the state of the American health care system. Instead I left feeling frustrated that (once again) he cheapens his arguments by resorting to sensationalism, over-the-top drama and superficial arguments. There is nothing that irks me more than intelligent people who dumb themselves down, and that is exactly what Michael Moore does in Sicko. He is like the Noam Chomsky of the film industry: he uses emotional footage to tug on his audience's heartstrings, and then dishes out a bunch of poorly-researched facts and figures without considering the counterarguments. It is frustrating because the majority of his audience probably doesn't realise that he is being dishonest. Instead they now think that Cuba is a magical land where prescription drugs grow on trees and that it's all sunshine and lollipops in Canadian emergency rooms.

Seriously though, what do you think he got from Fidel Castro in exchange for his shining portrayal of the Cuban health care system? It kind of reminds me of Jean-Paul Sartre's visits to the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and how upon his return he would extole the wonders and virtues of the Stalinist regime. Get a grip.

Les matins de Paris

Nothing brightens up my mornings like the crazy homeless man who lives on the corner of avenue de Suffren and avenue de la Motte-Picquet. I walk by him on my way to work. He is always hanging out on top of the metro vent. Sometimes he sports tribal-like markings on his face and crouches for hours on end, shooting glances at the passer-bys. Other times he's lying on sleeping bags with his buddies, presumably over for a slumber party. And then sometimes, I don't see him in his usual spot and I have to look around until I find him over by the trees, standing on one foot and listening intently to what I thought was a walkie-talkie. I started imagining this fantastical walkie-talkie network connecting all the homeless in Paris. You can imagine my disappointment when I realised it was only a portable radio. But I like to think he's listening to high frequency transmissions from another planet.

He is so wonderfully loony and whimsical. Lately he has taken to decorating his little sidewalk kingdom. One day the trash bins were covered with aluminium foil and golden bows. The other day he had tied bouquets of flowers around the lamp posts. And my personal favourite is when he slipped bright blue socks onto the iron pylons that line the avenue. Every day is a new surprise.

It suddenly got really cold in Paris. I'm keeping my window open for nostalgic reasons...I don't think I can handle the idea of summer being over. But I think I might brave the cold and check out a flick. Me, a bag of candy and Romain Duris. It doesn't get better than that.

Oh PS: I wish you could all teleport yourselves to my apartment right now because I just made the most delicious couscous ever. It tastes like paradise.

PPS: This video/song is good enough to make me forget that Kanye's last album ever happened. Me likie.

Né pour le combat.

I think the world needs to calm down re: the French foreign minister's apparent call to arms over Iran's nuclear program. Kouchner is not a politician and he does not mince words. And this whole story is eclipsing more interesting stuff in the news these days, like this article in the NY Times about how the Iraqi government has suspended Blackwater USA's license while it investigates if its employees were to blame in the death of 8 Iraqis. The implications of this could be huge, since the second largest armed force in Iraq is not the British army but private military contractors. The US relies on these companies for security, intel missions, administrating army bases, feeding soldiers, building infrastructure...everything. The presence of these contractors, especially those directly involved in security or support missions, effectively blurs the line between combattants and civilians. They are also rarely held accountable because they were granted immunity under the Coalition Provisional Authority.

On a completely unrelated note...I like team sports. I LOVE world championships...the best athletes of every country battling it out for supremacy and glory. It's pretty much the only time of the year when I get patriotic. So you can imagine that I'm pretty jazzed that the rugby world cup is on in France right now. I'm reminded of it every single day when I look out my window at the Eiffel tower, which is currently sporting a huge rugby ball in between it's pilars (insert obvious joke here) and is lit up in green.

Rugby-mania is palpable in Paris. Every drink hole in town is showing the games. There is an inordinate amount of brits/scots/irish/welsh filling up patios in even the dodgy parts of town where tourists don't normally venture. Last week was a particularly tense moment in franco-scottish relations when, on top of the rugby matches, the scottish football team played France in a Euro cup qualifier. I am not exaggerating when I say that for two days straight, my neighbourhood was taken over by inebriated men in kilts blowing horns and in general being a huge nuisance. And for two days straight, the supermarkets around my place were out of beer and cheap rosé wine.

So unfortunately France went and made things harder for themselves by losing their first game to Argentina. Obviously they crushed Namibia 87-10, but they still have to beat Ireland (yikes) and Georgia (whatever). All hopes rest on this teddybear:



whose talents include single-handedly bringing down a 6-man scrum, crushing any and all things that get in his way, and starring in ads for kid's products. Chabal-mania!

how are things are the west coast?

Evidently, not so great.

So what happened, vancouver? When did the homeless population get so huge? When did the crack and meth problem start taking over the West End? When did a massive police presence on Granville street become so necessary? When did the dumb jocks turn into dumb, violent jocks? No, this isn't just another one of my "no-fun city" rants. If I disliked Vancouver that much, I would not have spent the better part of my summer vacation there. But our favourite little west coast bubble has undergone some very noticeable changes in one year.

First of all, I can't get over how sketchy downtown Granville street is on club nights. You are more likely to end up in the hospital if you hang out there on a Friday night than you are walking around the downtown Eastside alone. Try standing outside any club or bar on that strip for an hour and count how many fights break out. Bet you couldn't count them on just one hand. Vancouverites' drinking habits are becoming alarmingly similar to those of the Brits.

Secondly, the petty crime rate is getting ridiculous. Yes, I got my bike stolen for the second time in a year, outside the Royal Unicorn, and yes, I'm still very choked. But so many people I know have either had the same shit happen to them, or have unwittingly bought stolen property from presuably legitimate sources.

Finally, I was surprised to find out the extent to which the population suffering from drug addiction has spread throughout the city. I don't ever remember seeing so many meth addicts around the West End. But the real eye-opener came when I cruised around the downtown Eastside searching for my stolen bike. The back alleys around the old Woodwards building and Carnegie Hall were literally teeming with junkies. When and how did this situation get so out of control?

I was searching around the internet earlier (I'm currently at work) and I found this online version of the BC Mental Health and Addictions Journal which deals specifically with the strong correlation between mental disorders and drug abuse. One of the main problems with the shelters and health services facilities in the downtown Eastside is that most of them are unable to treat both problems at once, even though the high occurence of mental illness among addicts suggests that they go hand in hand.

I'm noticing more and more how bizarre Vancouver is: while all the classic problems associated with large agglomerations have started to appear (infrastructure unable to cope with population boom, lack of social housing, homelessness and poverty, drug trafficking, etc) the mentality of most vancouverites seems to be stuck in the past, in an era where we could get away with not having a rapid transit system to and from the airport, or one could make a noise complaint and shut down a club with nary a peep from concertgoers. I hate to burst your bubble, Vancouver, but it's the 21st century now and you're supposed to be Canada's third largest city, and all that NIMBY bullshit is getting tired.