Pumping up

That's it. I started. I started. After 5 years I started going to the gym again. It's called "mise en forme" (making you fit) and it lasts 45m every Tuesday and Thursday at the Sports Centre of the Council, where I work.

It's funny to see your colleagues in spandex and pink gym socks (I also have a pair), or wearing white leggings with butterflies, or shorts so short you can almost see their buttocks. Wait until I see them again in one of our meetings to discuss secure communication and information systems and cyber-protection...

Anyway, it feels great. I'm able to stay upbeat for the first 30m, but the last 15m are a descent into muscle hell. The teacher keeps teasing us (nicely) and that helps to keep us going, but still... I'm on the floor and it feels like climbing.

I'm thrilled though, to be pumping up again. The heart says thank you.

pays de mon plaisir

Can you imagine, we've had a full week of glorious sunshine in Brussels.

C'est le pays de mon désir, c'est le bonheur, c'est le plaisir.

Vive le soleil! It's better than moonshine, it's damn better than rain! Shine till the end of day.

European Court for Human Rights

(to the presenter of Newsnight on BBC2 - 8 February 2011)

Dear Mr Paxman,

I have just seen you on TV sporting your supposedly charming macho swagger, badmouthing the European Court for Human Rights. In all honesty, you seemed to be pandering to the lowest common xenophobic denominator with your ignorant comments about the Court:

- unelected judges: as if UK judges were elected, and as if this in any way compromised their integrity and independence.

- a Russian judge deciding on British cases brought to Court: well, British judges decide on Russian cases too. What is so surprising about that? Or are you suggesting that some nationalities are better than others when it comes to professional competence?

What your comments and snide remarks show is a total lack of understanding of how international (voluntary) communities of States work. When you sign up to a Treaty you accept the principle of give and take. Moreover, the Human Rights Convention is a standard setting Treaty that provides citizens of signatory countries with one last possibility for redress when their appeal efforts within national jurisdictions have been exhausted. You should ask the citizens who were able to obtain this redress against the judicial machines of their own countries, including the UK, how important the Court was in applying justice where it was needed.

Perhaps the UK - interestingly enough just like Russia - doesn't like to be reminded that it sometimes fails to protect its own citizens in accordance with its own and international human rights standards which it is supposed to uphold and promote? Maybe the UK doesn't like the Court because it provides its own citizens with the chance of redress when its own national jurisdiction has proved unfair or failed to do so?

Mr Paxman, you either accept the principle of an international community of values, with its attaining institutions, or you don't. You either accept that in a community of values everybody is entitled to enforce compliance with commonly agreed rules, or you don't. If the latter is the case, well, good riddance!

And by the way, leaving the Court and thus leaving the Council of Europe would have very direct implications on EU membership (i.e. withdrawal too). Again, if that is the UK's wish, good riddance!

changing taste

I didn't really like rock before, I didn't like U2, I didn't like the Rolling Stones. Well, I've changed. I like change. I enjoy changing. I like adding new tastes, new colours, new feelings to my life.

People say you don't change after a while. It's scary to think that might be true. Well, it ain't. I like rock now. Not all of it. But I like rock. It's good to know we are not the same throughout our lives. We change. I've changed.

I like the sound of electric guitars, I like the sound of shouting, I like the sound of coarse voices, I like the sound of drums. I sing the body electric.

So I left the Metro early this morning humming One by U2. One Love. One Life. Sisters. Brothers. Shout. Shout. Strings. Strings. Rock. Electric.

acte définitif

Today we signed the final act of sale for our new house in Av. Tahon, by Rouge Cloître. I signed my full name. Long, visible, hard, with ups and downs like a ship in wavy waters. A very giddy signature.

The lady told us that the carps are one metre down, by the bottom of the garden pond, waiting for Spring to arrive. Then they will come up and Georgina will learn how to feed them.

The lady said she would cut down the big tree in the front, it lets too many leaves fall down in Autumn. But we like that tree and cutting it doesn't feel right. A shovel will come in handy. May the tree rain many happy leaves on us throughout the years. A tree is like a limb, you only cut it if you must.

I will have a room to paint all by myself. Visitors will be welcome, but by appointment only. I will let in anyone who comes with a song, or a hug, or a question mark upon their lips. Their lips must be carmine of course! Or mauve.

A house. Imagine!

rocky start for the Hungarian Presidency of the EU

The Hungarian Prime Minister was today in Strasbourg to address the European Parliament at the start of the country's 6-month Presidency of the Union.

Many (mainly centre-left and left-wing) parliamentarians challenged him and his government on the new media laws they are planning to introduce, which independent analysts consider to be a step back in time to a more authoritarian Hungary as seen under the former Communist leadership.

Sometimes the EP is worth our vote, not often, but sometimes one feels glad (surprised?) to see politicians take a stand for what is right. A bit of bullying in this case, including from the European Commission - finally alert to its role in the Treaty also as a defender of the Union's values and principles and not just as an Internal Market prosecutor - is actually a welcome sight.

No pasarán!

Ceci n'est pas un pays

No comments... well, maybe a couple:

- it's infuriating to see a country being broken apart by mediocre politicians! And while everyday I go to work trying to assist in the creation of a more united Europe, these fools are such a terrible and dispiriting example to watch.

- Magritte, that quintessential Belgian surrealist painter had once made a painting with the image of a pipe and the words "ceci n'est pas une pipe". I suppose a contemporary painting of his would have to read "ceci n'est pas un pays".

BBC NEWS
6 January 2011 Last updated at 17:45 GMT

Belgian mediator resigns over government deadlock

The mediator entrusted with ending the crisis that has left Belgium without a government for nearly seven months has tendered his resignation.

Johan Vande Lanotte, appointed by King Albert II, said he could make no further headway a day after two out of seven parties rejected his plan.

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink," he said.

The king has yet to accept his resignation and is due to see him again on Monday.

A caretaker government has been running Belgium since the election (my added comment: since June 2010!).

Belgium has been under pressure to reach a deal because sovereign debt is close to 100% of gross domestic product.

The plan proposed by Mr Vande Lanotte would see a further decentralisation of power to Belgium's regions, split between the Dutch-speaking Flemish population and French-speaking Walloons.

'Utopia'

The Flemish population has been seeking more control over tax policy while Walloons want greater protection and more money for the region around the capital, Brussels.

The Flemish Christian Democrats said earlier that essential items of the plan would have to be adjusted.

The New Flemish Alliance, which made the break-up of Belgium a central manifesto pledge at the election, said it had "fundamental remarks" to make about the proposal before continuing negotiations.

But the leader of a third Flemish party accused both parties of seeking "Utopia".

"I think the parties who don't see the note [plan] as a basis for negotiations will have to run for election in a country called Utopia next time," Bruno Tuybens of the Flemish Social Democrats said on Flemish TV.

"Those who pull the plug now will have to take the responsibility."

Mr Vande Lanotte, who is also a Flemish Social Democrat, said the parties would have to agree eventually.

"One day the politicians will have to take that step in the interests of the prosperity of our country," he told reporters.

While Belgian media were already speculating about a new choice of mediator, some analysts argued that fresh elections were a distinct possibility.

"If nothing else is possible, you have to vote in a democracy," Professor Carl Devos at Ghent University told Reuters news agency.

"It is not a structural solution to the problem but sometimes things improve afterwards."

"Cabbages are beautiful"

Yesterday evening I finished reading So Big by Edna Ferber. I found it in Chicago, in a bookshelf of Women and Children First, my favourite feminist bookshop in town. You can't find these things browsing on the web, you need a proper bookshop to find them.

So Big was a great read. The book is about many things.

The telluric power of women:
Selina, the heroine of the story, is a strong, creative, earthy woman, with dreams of getting to know the world, all of it. She ends up marrying young to a Dutch farmer in High Prairie, to the West of Chicago. Selina becomes Mrs DeJong. When her husband dies, leaving her alone with their son, Selina has finally the opportunity to put into practice all her shrewd ideas for developing the farm. Her asparagus become all the rage in Chicago. The rounder, more intense characters are all independent women, by choice or by circumstance. They seem to be the only ones who know what real life is all about. The other women are mocked in their dependence to men, fashion, money, status, convention. Dallas, the female art student that shows up at the end of the book, embodies the power of nature, of feeling, of art, of beauty, of being true to oneself (and succeeding in life precisely because of that).

The spiritual power of beauty:
Selina sees beauty in everything, even in cabbages. The Dutch farmers in High Prairie, where she first goes to be a teacher after her father dies in a shooting accident (he was a successful casino gambler!), don't get this. They like her, but find her "special". Selina likes books. She likes to see the fields bursting with life. Farm produce is more than that, it is the vital energy of the sun and the earth transformed. She understands that what comes from the soil is what gives people their food, and in the process what sustains that great urban enterprise called Chicago at the turn of the XIX century.

The power of following your heart:
Dirk, Selina's son, goes to university to become an architect (with the profit Selina makes from selling her farm produce, including the hogs, of which Dirk is ashamed). But he quits the profession and joins the banking world to sell bonds. Dirk soon becomes very wealthy and part of the jeunesse dorée of Chicago. Selina is disappointed. Dirk sold his soul to the "green devil", the dollar, and abandoned his vocation for beauty, for art. Selina wants Dirk to be curious, to see the world, to open his eyes and ears to its diversity, its colours, its smells, its rites, its peoples. She wants her son to be genuine, authentic, real. Selina wants Dirk to be successful, but also to follow his heart. His heart will empower him and bring him to a place of fulfillment. Eventually Dirk understands this when he meets Dallas, but could it have been too late? One hopes not.

Although written in 1924, the book spoke to me as if it had been written today. It disparages the pursuit of money for the sake of being rich. Success is good, wealth is good, but only when obtained through honest, productive means, and used for our personal growth and that of others around us. In the book, Ferber criticises the quick wealth obtained through financial manipulation as being devoid of humanity, solidity, realness. And it's interesting that she wrote this book just a few years before the great depression of 1929, caused by a financial market that had grown too big and artificial to be sustainable. Sounds like the current crisis we are going through...

So Big won the Pulitzer Prize in 1925. It was a best-seller in those days and was published in many European languages. Ferber is also the author of Show Boat (1926) - the novel became a huge success when adapted to the Broadway musical of 1927 - and of Giant (1952), which also became quite famous when made into a film (1956), the last one in which James Dean appeared before dying in a car accident.

I think Ms Ferber, who never married (wink, wink!) was a Thoroughly Modern Milly Girl! Just the way I like.

And I agree with Selina, cabbages are beautiful!

simpleton's economics

Denise was here for New Year's Eve. Late at night we spoke about the economy. I brought it up. I mean, I don't know very much about economics but there are a few things that have been bothering me lately about the way European governments have been managing the crisis:

1. there's always money available, not just millions but billions, to save the banks and bail them out, but there's never any money to keep investing in education, and health, and transport, and social welfare, and pensions, all crucial elements of social cohesion and social peace, and the fundamental pillars of the only kind of prosperity that really matters, i.e. quality of life;

2. the banks in question, happy enough during their years of bonanza to keep the government away from their profits, were only too excited to receive the State's bailouts when their investments faltered; for a while they remained coy about their extravagant bonuses but soon after they started distributing them again to their top employees as if nothing had happened, just business as usual. It's immoral and enraging, and there seems to be little political will and power to do something about it (despite the comforting speeches by politicians);

3. the austerity measures in place will hit young people the hardest, many of whom will see their hopes of a proper education and job completely destroyed. What's the point of austerity of this nature when the end result is social instability, strife and possible mayhem? I'm not surprised when I see the protests in Greece, or France, or the UK, or Ireland, I'm just surprised that there are so few of them still;

4. the bond speculators are all out there sharpening their shark's teeth and they seem to be untouchable. They obviously don't care that their betting gambles may result in the misfortune of entire nations, not to mention the lives of very real people. Are they really untouchable or is the system so that nobody cares to bring them down?

5. the more I look at Germany the more I realise the fallacy of the boom years of the 1980's and 1990's, during which we were made to believe that a service-based economy would save us all and bring us fortune and happiness. Well, in Germany they kept their manufacture and they continue to take pride in their "made in Germany" and in the apprenticeship tradition that goes hand in hand. No wonder their economy is strong and was the first one to recover in real terms. Yes, we need services, but the destruction of industry in many European countries gave way to a virtual economy that once collapsed leaves nothing behind, just a gap hard to fill.

I know, simpleton's economics. But one still wonders...

guitar lessons

Georgie had her second guitar lesson today. Her teacher is a young woman from Lithuania. When we bought the guitar early this week Georgie said: "my dream came true". She had been asking for a guitar for more than a year. Jarl and I guessed this was a serious wish that deserved to be fulfilled. It's nice to sit with Georgie and the teacher at the end of each lesson and hear her play a couple of notes on the guitar. Georgie looks so proud and happy. And so do we. One more opportunity for us all to grow together, to explore new horizons. To grow. To learn. To grow.